The DLGuard set of scripts allow anybody with their own web server to sell digital products over the internet through providing secure Software Download links after administering the checkout and handling payment processing of sales. This DLGuard review principally highlights the products use in selling ebooks online, but the product can handle any digital file type that can be uploaded.
The product is a set of scripts that cover all the functionality required of a sales management tool. This includes inventory administration, providing on-site purchase links, interfacing with Paypal (and other payment processing companies), etc.
The checkout phase in DLGuard is able to handle a number of possible sales types. The simplest sales type is the sale of a single product or item. If your ebook business follows a publisher style business model then the application facilitates customers with a shopping basket to store items before checkout. Lastly selling website memberships (monthly sales) can also be managed. If you have free downloads then you could also use the single-item sales approach (omitting the payment step) in order to capture customer email addresse.
My own experience with the product started three years ago and the initial intention was to start selling ebooks online (both my own books and ebook reselling) and some sales of software applications (principally add-ons for larger applications).
Installing the product back in 2007 on a single server took about 20 minutes. The time consuming part was adding links and buttons on my sites where customers could buy my ebooks. A good recommendation is to start out with a single website and one or two ebooks you wish to sell so that you can fine tune the buttons, links and cart design.
The functionality that comes with DLGuard is impressive and is flexible enough to facilitate advanced users. In particular, the membership sales functionality is something that I will look into using this year. Any forum posts on the web indicate that maintaining membership subscribers is a good way of creating a steady cash flow from your websites.
In hindsight, I could have opted to use some of the large websites on-line for selling ebooks and software, but I was put off by a couple of factors. First was the commission that I'd have to pay and secondly there is the problem that it is not possible to compile a customer email database during the checkout stage (the third party vendor retains this information).
From my analysis, the one constraint using the product is the 2 web domain license limit. This states that the product can only be installed on 2 servers from the one product purchase. In truth though, any sales made will pay for a license quickly enough as the product is quite competitively priced.
In conclusion, the goal of any Games Download sales management tool is that it securely handles inventory, check-out and payment processing with little or no intervention on the owners part. DLGuard has done this admirably leaving me more time to focus on writing ebooks and sourcing other business opportunities.
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