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Amazon S3 : Big Files?

by Daniel F. Lavoie
5 replies
Hi,

I want to make my product a 3.5GB zip file available for download on my Amazon S3 account.

But it seems that I'm can get the upload to complete successfully! I tried at least 5-6 times with no success.

I even tried a RJ-45 cable instead in my 802.11g connection to have a more stable connection with - again - no success.

Does someone have a workaround or it's just me having this problem?

Best regards,
Daniel
#amazon #big #files
  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Nevermind worrying about the upload of that file. Who do you expect will sit there and download a 3.5GB file? They must be mad. I would definitely re-think that one. That would take the average person half a day or longer - not to mention the cost in their home bandwidth.

    If your product is 3.5GB in size then you need to head over to a place like Kunaki.com or something similar and you can then offer that product on a data DVD - much more user friendly.

    BTW, if you are having all these problems uploading the file, imagine the problems people will have downloading it. I know how happy I would be if I got half way through downloading it and the connection cut-out. I would want to kill you! Seriously, not a very good idea.
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel F. Lavoie
      Thank you WillR for your reply.

      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      Nevermind worrying about the upload of that file. Who do you expect will sit there and download a 3.5GB file? They must be mad.
      900 people so far. Very passionated crowd I must say.

      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      I would definitely re-think that one. That would take the average person half a day or longer - not to mention the cost in their home badnwidth. If you product is 3.5GB in size then you need to head over to a place like Kunaki.com or something similar and you can then offer the product on a data DVD - much more user friendly.
      Yes it takes about 4 hours to a day to download the complete package.

      To be honest here, I was using Kunaki for the launch of this particular product and they screwed 25% of all the DVDs sent to my clients. So around 75 clients received corrupted DVDs. What a mess... They offered me to pay for their mistake if I could send them back 5-6 copies but I decided not to bother my clients and to absorb the financial lost (not a huge one but still a loss). Big mess. I will never use Kunaki again.

      This is why I switched to a downloadable format. I was sick of all the Customer Service question about : Hey can you tell me where's my order? My dvd isn't arrived yet.

      Since I switched, I got a small bump in conversion. Maybe it's because of an instant gratification thing because they can consume the product in the next hours instead of waiting for days (or weeks in the case of international clients).

      Also, I'm pretty upfront with the size of the download on my salesletter. They know what to expect when they buy.

      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      BTW, if you are having all these problems uploading the file, imagine the problems people will have downloading it. I know how happy I would be if I go half way through downloading it and it cut-out. I would want to kill you! Seriously, not a very good idea.
      Uploading a big file to Amazon S3 is a hassle but downloading it is not a problem because Amazon S3 support broken download resume.

      I surveyed my customers 2 weeks ago about what to improve in the future, their problem with my product etc, with over 200 answers nobody wanted to kill me because of it. hehe.

      (I'm working on another video product and I want to free up my dedicated server bandwidth this is why I want to switch over to AmazonS3)
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      • Profile picture of the author WillR
        Daniel,

        Can I make a suggestion - it has worked for me. In my members area I have over 8GB worth of downloads, all hosted on S3 also. It is manageable for my customers though because they are separate 4MB tracks they can download when and as they need them.

        However when a customer signs up I also offer them the option of purchasing the physical version of all the files sent to them on DVD (3 x data DVD set). Maybe an idea you might want to consider. You can see upwards of 30% of the original orders also ordering the physical version. They don't have to, you are just offering it as an option to those who don't have the time or patience to sit there and download the large files. Put it forward as something you have created to make their lives easier for them.

        In terms of CD/DVD duplication, yes, you get what you pay for. Kunaki are cheap and so is their customer service - yet they are upfront about that from the beginning - so it is to be expected.

        I use a company called Vervante for all my CD/DVD's. They are a little more expensive but as I said, you get what you pay for. Each package goes out with a packing slip where you can write instructions or special messages to your customers. They also handle all the return requests from customer for you and will ship out new products if a customer receives a faulty one.

        You also have the option of including printed materials with your package. For example, I send out a 4-5 page letter with all my packages upselling them to another product that will help them even more. And it only costs 5 cents for each black and white page you want to include.

        Just a thought...
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        • Profile picture of the author Daniel F. Lavoie
          Originally Posted by WillR View Post

          Daniel,

          Can I make a suggestion - it has worked for me. In my members area I have over 8GB worth of downloads, all hosted on S3 also. It is manageable for my customers though because they are separate 4MB tracks they can download when and as they need them.

          However when a customer signs up I also offer them the option of purchasing the physical version of all the files sent to them on DVD (3 x data DVD set). Maybe an idea you might want to consider. You can see upwards of 30% of the original orders also ordering the physical version. They don't have to, you are just offering it as an option to those who don't have the time or patience to sit there and download the large files. Put it forward as something you have created to make their lives easier for them.

          In terms of CD/DVD duplication, yes, you get what you pay for. Kunaki are cheap and so is their customer service - yet they are upfront about that from the beginning - so it is to be expected.

          I use a company called Vervante for all my CD/DVD's. They are a little more expensive but as I said, you get what you pay for. Each package goes out with a packing slip where you can write instructions or special messages to your customers. They also handle all the return requests from customer for you and will ship out new products if a customer receives a faulty one.

          You also have the option of including printed materials with your package. For example, I send out a 4-5 page letter with all my packages upselling them to another product that will help them even more. And it only costs 5 cents for each black and white page you want to include.

          Just a thought...
          I'm currently using Vervante too (and I must say... top notch CS) for my eBay sales and when people want a physical copy of the product.

          I should have added the option to get a physical copy too in my salesletter... I definitely missed some extra money there.

          I'm curious, how much do you charge in extra for the disc package?

          It cost me around 5$ per dvd + sometimes 5$ for the shipping for some international countries with Vervante. So I can't obviously charge less than 10$ for it.

          What would be a fair price in my case? 17$?
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          • Profile picture of the author WillR
            It really depends how much you are charging for the downloaded version. But don't feel you have to make them too cheap. Remember, when pricing something like that don't think of them as just a CD or just a DVD, the value lies in what is on those CD's or DVD's.

            Some Internet Marketing courses that cost upwards of $1,000 are, at the end of the day, just a box full of DVD's. But the value is in the information stored on those DVD's.

            Most of the time people will use the physical version of the product as a logical upsell - ie: it should cost more than the original product. Remember, they do not have to purchase it if they don't want to. You are offering it to them as a convenience and some people will love to take you up on that. As I mentioned it is not at all uncommon to see around 30% of your original customers taking you up on the upsell. (important to note an upsell is an offer made to them straight after they have purchased the first product, not on the original sales page).

            If however you want to offer the physical DVD as an option on the sales page right next to the digital option, a decoy pricing method might be a good thing for you to try. So it would work something like this. You would have 3 different options, something like:

            Option A: Digital Version for $37

            Option B: DVD Version for $67

            Option C: Digital + DVD Version for $67

            See how that works? Option B is thrown in there as a decoy. Why would you buy the DVD for $67 when you can get both the DVD and the digital version for $67. And why would you buy just the Digital Version when you can get the digital and DVD (usually $104 if purchased separately) for only $67. This method can work REALLY well.
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