You could zip all of the individual files together and offer it as a single download but eShop can’t create a zip file on demand. You’ll also have to keep an eye of the size of the file downloads. Once you get into multiple music tracks, you may find that the complete zip file is so large that the server times out before the download is complete.
Still no support for multiple file downloads per product?
This is the only feature missing that’s been holding us back from using eShop on several of the web sites that we work with…
Actually this could be done very simply.
-Create each album as a product
-For each album, create an option for each individual track, with an appropriate MP3 file linked to it
-also create an option for a full album download, linked to a zip file containing all the MP3s.
It’s not perfect, but I think it’s at least as good as the other ecommerce plugins options out there.
Yup, the zip option occurred to me a few days after I posted, but I’d be forced to use mp3s instead of higher quality aiffs. Oh well, thanks everyone.
Actually this could be done very simply.
In reality, it’s not so simple. The resulting zip file often ends up being so huge that the servers time out before it’s fully downloaded. 🙁
Actually this could be done very simply.
In reality, it’s not so simple. The resulting zip file often ends up being so huge that the servers time out before it’s fully downloaded. 🙁
And in our case we sell digital video downloads where we make various encoded formats available for our customers to download. All files contain the same video so the ZIP alternative wouldn’t work for us at all. Nobody would want to download a single 5 TB ZIP file containing 10 different codec versions of the same 500 MB video.
Actually this could be done very simply.
-Create each album as a product
-For each album, create an option for each individual track, with an appropriate MP3 file linked to it
It would be way too complicated, and bad for business due to potential purchasing hesitations, to require that our customers actually have knowledge about codecs and formats before they actually buy the product. Most customers don’t even know what a codec is or what format actually works best for them.
I can see why it would be a poor solution for video downloads, but I still think it would work fairly well for mp3s. If an album has 10 mp3s the zip file is likely 30mb or so, which seems not completely unreasonable.
I can see why it would be a poor solution for video downloads, but I still think it would work fairly well for mp3s. If an album has 10 mp3s the zip file is likely 30mb or so, which seems not completely unreasonable.
I agree – if you only want to offer a single format for your downloadable music. Not a problem. But if you want to offer your music in various formats to better serve your customer (e.g. MP3, AAC, WMA and Ogg) you would still have the same original problem. Offering various downloadable format options is the way most of the big boys do it these days, like http://www.beatport.com does.
Well fair enough, but if you’re looking to be one of the big boys, then using eshop and wordpress is probably not the way to go anyway.
Well fair enough, but if you’re looking to be one of the big boys, then using eshop and wordpress is probably not the way to go anyway.
Touché! 😉
Seriously though, our goal is not to compete with the big boys. We love WP and we love eShop. But if this particular feature were to be implemented into a future version of eShop, it would open a lot of doors, as several of my customers using WP have been requesting this for quit some time.
Plugin Author
elfin
(@elfin)
It is possible to sell a bundle of mp3’s and individually.
Locate the eShop downloads directory, create a sub directory, and upload what ever you like to it. You will then be able to sell it as a package, or access each item individually.
Hidden feature 😉
And in our case we sell digital video downloads
@killerdog – we are wanting to do this too. But more like sell 3-7 videos as one complete series. How do you currently do this? I’m trying to find a good solution and thought eshop would be it, but now i’m getting into it i’m not so sure…
Considering using vimeo pro as well. Any thoughts on that one?!
It is possible to sell a bundle of mp3’s and individually.
Locate the eShop downloads directory, create a sub directory, and upload what ever you like to it. You will then be able to sell it as a package, or access each item individually.
Hidden feature 😉
Cool! I can get by with only mp3s so that should be sufficient. Thanks!
