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What's the best shopping cart available for selling digital downloads with an affiliate progam?

by SteveSki
9 replies
What's the best shopping cart available for selling digital downloads?

I've been using osCommerce, Open Source Online Shop E-Commerce Solutions but am very dissatisfied with all of the little glitches that keep recurring. I'm a photographer, not an IT expert so I outsource most of my online needs.

My present webmaster went with osCommerce when building the site and now instead of the site freeing up more of my time I'm constantly receiving emails from customers who can't figure out how to checkout or download their purchase and far to often when they do make a purchase and log into their customer account page their order appears but the download link is greyed out and inactive so I now spend far more time emailing them alternative download links than I should.

I purchased another domain name to build a sister site and this time my web guy is suggesting ZenCart but the reviews I read on ZenCart lead me to believe that I'd be better off investing in something other than a open source shopping cart.

Can anyone suggest a good solution to meet my needs... I sell mostly digital downloads and would like to offer my customers an affiliate program in the hopes that will motivate them to refer others. But most important is that the shopping cart is very user friendly and the system delivers working download links immediately on receiving payment.

Most of my customers are amateur and pro photographers who buy from me over and over, even with all of the glitches and system failures because they really like our digital fantasy backgrounds but they don't want their competitors gaining access to them so they try to keep it a secret from other photographers.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve Shulenski
#affiliate #cart #digital #downloads #progam #selling #shopping #what’s
  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    If you a dead set on your own shopping cart, then try something like CubeCart. There is a whole community built around mods and plugins, including an affiliate program. I would recommend a third party like e-junkie. They have a ready to wear affiliate program built in.
    Signature

    Founder of JVZoo. All around good guy :)

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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    I use this - it's definitely slanted towards download products:
    Delavo

    Supports affiliate programs. Very feature rich, and free to get
    going now.
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  • Profile picture of the author carterstory
    things like zencart oscart and cubecart are free,.. you get what you pay for. If you want to put the time in and if you are techy then it may be worth it.. If you are paying someone, you're better off using a 3rd party you'll get it up and running in no time, with less hassle.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveSki
    Thanks for the suggestions so far... Zencart and Cubecart are similar to the free Open Source I use now. e-Junkie doesn't seem to be a good fit for me and I can't find many reviews on Delvao. There must be other 3rd party solutions I haven't seen that will fill my needs. I'm not happy with the free ones and am very willing to invest money for a solution that works. Does anyone else have a recommendation?
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  • Profile picture of the author Anon7
    I've always liked Interspire Shopping Cart. It handles digital downloads too, but I've never used that feature because I use it for physical products.

    I can say that I have used and tried all the open source versions plus several premium carts, and for me, Interspire Shopping Cart is hands down the best and easiest to use that I've come across.

    -Jack
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  • Profile picture of the author dlc3
    Hi Steve,

    I have tryed alot of different carts and 2 of the easier ones that i have used is Open Cart and Maian Cart . My favorite is Maian Cart because it can be edited alot easier that Open Cart. Hope that helps !

    Dave
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  • Profile picture of the author Marc Eglon
    The problem with asking a question like that is you'll get 10 different answers from 10 different people. I've used DAP (with paypal and wordpress) to set up an entire ecosystem of products with an affiliate program and it works well for me.

    There you go, yet another answer....

    Essentially, they all do the same thing so just pick something and run with it - don't get caught up splitting hairs.
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