ebooks, paypal, ecommerce ???

[MadSage]

I'm trying to setup a website for my brother who is a writer. He wants to sell ebooks from his site and currently has one ebook priced at just £1.50 ($2.50).

The problem is, I'm having trouble setting up the purchasing system. We can't afford setup fees, monthly fees, or large royalties, so the best option it seems is to use PayPal. I used PayPal's IPN system to create a script which emailed a secure download link to the buyer, but I can't get it working! This has been going on for over a month now, and it's getting frustrating.

I've heard that osCommerce works with PayPal, and wondered if that was a better way to go. Has anyone get any suggestions about how we should set this up?

[stevel]

Well, osCommerce can do this. You'll have some work to do to integrate the PayPal IPN module with it (doesn't come standard.)

[MadSage]

Thanks for the reply.

On the good side, osCommerce provides secure downloads after processing payments, and will use PayPal IPN with an addon.

The downside is that it seems overcomplicated for our needs. All we need is a buy now button for each ebook... no cart, or customer registration.

Is there anyway to simplify osCommerce... skip the cart and customer registration? Perhaps another module or two will do this? Also, is it easy to change the look of the store pages to match our site?

[MadSage]

Well I've found the 'Purchase Without Account' module you mentioned in an earlier thread. That's a start...

[stevel]

Unfortunately, osCommerce is rather difficult to customize the look of. You might want to try Zen Cart (www.zen-cart.com) which is based on osCommerce but has more features built in (and the initial distribution is kept up tp date, unlike osC.)

[Redrider112]

Does ZenCart have a "purchase without account" option? I am looking for the same thing (as posted in another thread), juts something where the customer can purchase a gift certificate, send their info, and be done. I feel that having to set up an account will discourage some customers.

Madsage, keep us posted on what you decided, and Steve, as always, your a big help in these forums. I am sure you'll have an answer for us!:D

[stevel]

I don't know - it may. Why not check it out? I've thought of adding PWA to my store (I actually improved part of it while working on a merge of it and my Country-State Selector contribution, but I don't have PWA on my live store.)

[MadSage]

Madsage, keep us posted on what you decided

I decided to go back to my PayPal IPN script, and I've almost got it working now.

[linnetwoods]

You may notice, wih the PayPal Buy Now button setup, that some of the options that require other actions on your part to function are automatically checked (which seems a bit silly) and it took me ages to realize that I needed to change them from Yes to No or create a further page to get things working (Button encryption and automatic returns, for example).

[Redrider112]

For the record, Zencart does not currently have a purchase w/o account option, it is said to be one of the things they would like to add in the future.