IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:04 | Hi! I am Morten Rand-Hendriksen and welcome to
WordPress Ecommerce: Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 00:11 | In this course we'll look at how to
use the Easy Digital Downloads plugin to
| | 00:16 | create an ecommerce site with WordPress
to sell digital products and services.
| | 00:22 | First, we'll look at what Easy
Digital Downloads is and how it works.
| | 00:26 | Then we'll take a deep dive into the
configuration settings of the plugin; we'll
| | 00:32 | create and configure products with
different prices, options, and variations;
| | 00:38 | and finally, we will add extensions to
the plugin to manage new payment
| | 00:42 | and shipping options.
| | 00:44 | Easy Digital Downloads is a simple
solution for selling digital products and
| | 00:48 | services with WordPress.
| | 00:51 | All you have to do is set it
up, and I'm here to show you how.
| | 00:55 | So let's get cracking with
WordPress Ecommerce Easy Digital Downloads.
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| What to know before you start this course| 00:00 | This course focuses on using the Easy
Digital Downloads plugin in combination
| | 00:05 | with WordPress to create and manage an
online store to sell digital and virtual products.
| | 00:11 | It's important that you have a clear
understanding of how to configure and use a
| | 00:15 | WordPress site so you can follow
along with me through the course.
| | 00:18 | If you don't already have a WordPress
site set up or if this is the first time
| | 00:23 | you're using WordPress, I urge you to
go watch my WordPress Essential Training
| | 00:27 | course here in the lynda.com online
training library and then come back to this
| | 00:32 | course when you're done.
| | 00:33 | It's also important that you have a
WordPress site set up either on your local
| | 00:38 | computer or on a server on the web.
| | 00:41 | If you want to use a WordPress site
on the server on the web, WordPress
| | 00:45 | Essential Training will
show you how to set that up.
| | 00:48 | If you want to set up WordPress on
your local computer, be it on a Windows
| | 00:52 | computer or on a Mac, you can go and
check out the Installing and Running
| | 00:56 | WordPress series in the
lynda.com online training library.
| | 01:00 | The series shows several different
methods you can use to set up WordPress on
| | 01:04 | your computer, depending on what kind
of operating system you have and what
| | 01:07 | your preference is.
| | 01:09 | Before embarking on building an
ecommerce site, it's also important you've made
| | 01:13 | the necessary preparations and that
you have a clear idea of what is required
| | 01:17 | and what it entails to create an online store.
| | 01:21 | To give you the tools you need and
help you make the important decisions and
| | 01:24 | think through the many aspects of
ecommerce before diving into the technical
| | 01:28 | minutia, I've created a
course called WordPress Ecommerce:
| | 01:32 | Core Concepts that you should go
and watch in full before continuing.
| | 01:37 | With a WordPress site to work with, an
understanding of how WordPress works, and
| | 01:41 | the WordPress Ecommerce:
| | 01:43 | Core Concepts course in hand, you'll
have a solid footing to stand on when
| | 01:47 | we dive into how to use Easy Digital
Downloads to build an ecommerce site
| | 01:51 | with WordPress.
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1. Getting StartedWhat is Easy Digital Downloads?| 00:00 | Throughout this course we'll be using
the Easy Digital Downloads plugin to add
| | 00:04 | ecommerce functionality to a
WordPress site for selling digital and virtual
| | 00:08 | products. But before we start, let's
take a look at Easy Digital Downloads
| | 00:12 | itself: where it comes from, who
built it, and how you can get it.
| | 00:17 | Easy Digital Downloads has a website at
easydigitaldownloads.com where you get
| | 00:22 | all the information about the plugin.
| | 00:24 | Here you have a video off the top
demonstrating how it works, and you also
| | 00:27 | have more information.
| | 00:29 | In addition, this site is where you
would find a forum for information about how
| | 00:33 | to use it, and you also have extensions
that you can buy or you can download for
| | 00:38 | free that extend the
functionality of the plugin itself.
| | 00:42 | Easy Digital Downloads was created by
Pippin Williamson and a long list of other
| | 00:46 | contributors, and it's a free, open-source plugin,
| | 00:50 | meaning anyone can contribute to it and
anyone can download it for free and use
| | 00:54 | it on their site for whatever they want.
| | 00:56 | You can also augment it if you want
and add new features to it, like many
| | 01:00 | people do and then they make extensions that
they can either give away for free or sell.
| | 01:05 | If you want to see the bleeding-edge version
of Easy Digital Downloads, you can go to GitHub.
| | 01:12 | GitHub is an online repository for code
where people can publish code and then
| | 01:16 | other people can send in
augmentations to the code or fixes or issues or
| | 01:21 | anything they want and then those
are addressed on an ongoing basis.
| | 01:25 | Due to this, anything that's on GitHub
gets updated at a very, very rapid pace
| | 01:30 | and new features come online all the time.
| | 01:33 | As you can see here, there have been
changes made to Easy Digital Downloads as
| | 01:37 | short as two hours ago.
| | 01:39 | You see the list here of
when things were changed.
| | 01:41 | Of course, this is the bleeding-edge
version so it'll take a while for these
| | 01:46 | updates to get into the version that
you download and run under computer unless
| | 01:50 | you want to use a bleeding-edge
version, which is what you find here.
| | 01:54 | If you want to contribute to Easy
Digital Downloads, this is also where you would
| | 01:58 | do that, by using GitHub.
| | 02:00 | That way you can fork it, and you can
send new updates to it, and you can also
| | 02:04 | flag issues that need to be fixed.
| | 02:07 | Easy Digital Downloads was
launched out of beta in April 2012,
| | 02:12 | so it's a very recent addition
to the WordPress ecommerce space.
| | 02:16 | The reason why it's gained so much
popularity is because it's so simple to use
| | 02:21 | and it only focuses on digital downloads.
| | 02:23 | So if you're selling only
downloadable products or only services, this is a
| | 02:28 | great option because it takes away
all that complicated stuff that surround
| | 02:32 | other plugins and makes
it very, very easy to use.
| | 02:35 | You can also find Easy Digital
Downloads under the wordpress.org plugin
| | 02:40 | directory, where you can download it
from the website or you can install it
| | 02:44 | directly from within WordPress
admin, making it very easy to use.
| | 02:48 | Easy Digital Downloads is popular because
of its clean UI and super-simple operation.
| | 02:53 | Even though Easy Digital Downloads
is very new in the WordPress ecommerce
| | 02:57 | space it's a great solution for
anyone looking to sell digital and virtual
| | 03:01 | products. Because it doesn't have to
concern itself with the complications
| | 03:05 | of shipping and all that entails, the
setup is simplified and straight to
| | 03:09 | the point.
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| Setting up WordPress for ecommerce| 00:00 | I like to say you should always start
with a clean slate whenever you start a
| | 00:04 | new WordPress project, and that is
especially true when you're starting an
| | 00:08 | ecommerce project, because if you
have an existing site with existing
| | 00:11 | navigation and an existing structure
and you want to add ecommerce into it, you
| | 00:16 | may have to change a lot of the
features on your site to make everything work
| | 00:20 | properly and make it easy for
people to find the content on your site.
| | 00:24 | That doesn't mean you have to start
a new site to make an ecommerce site;
| | 00:28 | it just means starting a new site
is probably easier than incorporating
| | 00:31 | ecommerce into your existing site.
| | 00:34 | When you create an ecommerce site there
are certain things you have to add that
| | 00:38 | wouldn't be in a regular WordPress
site, or any other site for that matter.
| | 00:42 | Things like adding a privacy policy and
a terms and conditions page become very
| | 00:46 | important because you need to
tell people what you're doing with the
| | 00:49 | information they're sending to you.
| | 00:51 | The privacy policy page is a page where
you would outline exactly what happens
| | 00:56 | to the information people send to you,
things like you're not going to sell that
| | 01:00 | information to someone or share it
and that you're keeping it secret.
| | 01:04 | The terms and conditions page
outlines what happens when people buy the
| | 01:07 | products, what terms and
conditions they're buying the product under.
| | 01:11 | So adding these pages is very important.
| | 01:14 | As you can see, I've added a privacy policy and
a terms and conditions page to my sites already.
| | 01:20 | I can't give you a template for it,
because these are legal pages, and what goes
| | 01:24 | inside them changes depending on your business.
| | 01:26 | So you have to do your own
research here and create the pages.
| | 01:30 | In addition to a privacy policy and a
terms and conditions page, you should also
| | 01:35 | have an about page that tells the story
of the store and tells information about
| | 01:39 | the store, and you should have a
contact page so people can easily contact you,
| | 01:44 | and that's what we're going to make now.
| | 01:46 | So to make a new contact page, I'm
going to go to New and select Page, and then
| | 01:52 | I'll create a contact page.
| | 01:54 | So I'll call it contact. And then
I'll put in some text here. I'll just
| | 01:58 | say, "Contact us with questions, comments,
or suggestions by filling out the form below."
| | 02:12 | The reason why I want to add a form is
because I want to control the type of
| | 02:15 | information people send to you and I
also don't want to receive a lot of spam,
| | 02:19 | because if you leave an email address
open in a page on the internet, then spam
| | 02:24 | bots will find it and start sending you
lots of garbage email, and you don't want that.
| | 02:28 | Of course, this is a contact page, so
you can add other information here too.
| | 02:32 | You can add your mailing address or your
visiting address, your phone number, or
| | 02:36 | even a map if you need to.
| | 02:38 | But I'm going to add a form, and to
add a form I first need to add a plugin.
| | 02:43 | So I'm going to save this as a draft,
and then I'll go to Plugins and select Add
| | 02:47 | New, and here I'll search for grunion.
| | 02:50 | The Grunion Contact Form plugin is a simple
contact form plugin that works really well.
| | 02:59 | The reason I like the Grunion
Contact Form plugin is because when people
| | 03:03 | respond to the forms the responses end up in
your site, so you can manage them from here.
| | 03:09 | You don't have to read them in
your email unless you want to.
| | 03:13 | Now that I have installed the plugin,
I'm going to activate it and then I'll go
| | 03:17 | back to my Pages and find my contact
page, and now I have a new button here right
| | 03:22 | next to Add Media that
lets me add a custom form.
| | 03:25 | So I'll place my cursor where I want
the form to appear, and I'll click Add
| | 03:30 | custom form, and from here
I can configure a new form.
| | 03:34 | The default form here is
actually fine for my purposes.
| | 03:37 | But if you want to customize it, like
you wanted to add maybe a dropdown to ask
| | 03:42 | people, how did you find us or what
type of question is this or you want to
| | 03:45 | collect more information like a
phone number to people, you can do so by
| | 03:49 | clicking Add a new field
down here at the bottom.
| | 03:52 | You can also configure where the email
notifications go to and what the emails
| | 03:56 | look, like by going to the Email
notifications tab, but I'm just going to
| | 04:00 | insert the form as it is.
| | 04:01 | So I'll click add this form to my
post. And as you can see, the form actually
| | 04:06 | consist of series of this short codes.
| | 04:08 | So these short codes
combined will create form I need.
| | 04:11 | Now I'll click Publish, and I'll go
view the page, and you'll see we now have a
| | 04:19 | nice contact page with a simple form
that people can fill out and submit. But
| | 04:23 | if I scroll down to the bottom, you
notice I also have a Comment section, and if
| | 04:27 | I go to the other pages and scroll
down, you'll see we have comments at the
| | 04:31 | bottom of those too.
| | 04:33 | That's because by default WordPress
allows us to have comments on pages, but I
| | 04:37 | don't want comments on my pages,
| | 04:39 | so I'm going to disable it and I'm
going to disable it for all the pages.
| | 04:43 | So I'll go back to the Dashboard, I'll
go to the Pages > All Pages, and then I'll
| | 04:48 | check all the pages here, go to Bulk
Actions, and click Edit, and click Apply, and
| | 04:55 | now I can set comments for
all these pages to Do not allow.
| | 04:59 | When I update, you'll see
when we go back to the page--
| | 05:02 | so I'll go back to the About page--
| | 05:05 | there's no more Comment section.
| | 05:07 | As you add new pages onto your site,
you have to keep doing this so that you
| | 05:12 | don't have the Comment section under
your shopping cart and under your store and
| | 05:15 | so on. But that's an easy way of mass
editing all of your pages at once to
| | 05:20 | enable or disable features.
| | 05:22 | Now that I have the pages I need, the next
step is to reorganize my menu, because
| | 05:27 | as we can see right now, we have an
alphabetical menu plus the Home button at the very front.
| | 05:32 | What I want to do is change this so
that the Contact button is at the very end.
| | 05:37 | To do that, I'm going to create a new menu,
and I can do that in several different ways.
| | 05:40 | I can either go to the toolbar and
select Menus or I can go to the Dashboard and
| | 05:46 | then go to Appearance > Menus.
| | 05:48 | Here I'm going to create a new menu.
| | 05:50 | So I'll call it Header Menu. Click Create Menu.
| | 05:56 | Then I'm going to assign Header Menu
to the Primary Menu area in my theme, and
| | 06:03 | then I'm going to add items to my menu.
| | 06:05 | So I'll click on View All here under
Pages, and then I'll add all five items,
| | 06:09 | so the Home page, About, Contact,
Privacy Policy, and Terms & Conditions, and
| | 06:15 | then I can drag these around to reorganize them.
| | 06:19 | So now I put the Contact page at the
very bottom and then the About, Privacy
| | 06:23 | Policy, and Terms & Conditions.
| | 06:25 | I can click Save Menu, go view the
sites, and the menu is different.
| | 06:32 | I can take this a step further by
creating a dropdown for these legal pages.
| | 06:36 | So I'll create a menu item that
goes nowhere by putting a pound sign
| | 06:40 | instead of a URL, and then I'll
say Legal. Click Add to Menu.
| | 06:45 | Then I'll drag Terms & Conditions and
Privacy Policy down here under Legal, and
| | 06:53 | then I'll place Legal before
Contact and click Save Menu again.
| | 06:58 | Now, when I reload the page you'll
see we have Legal for the dropdown.
| | 07:02 | For this course I'm going to be using the
2012 theme as the default theme for my site.
| | 07:08 | If you want to further customize the
2012 theme, you can do so by activating
| | 07:12 | the theme customizer.
| | 07:13 | If you go to the toolbar here and
select Customize, you'll open the theme
| | 07:18 | customizer, and from here you can do
things like hide and display the header
| | 07:22 | text, you can change the colors of the
site, and you can change the navigation.
| | 07:40 | So right now it set to Header
Menu, and you can do other things.
| | 07:44 | This theme also allows
you to add a header image.
| | 07:46 | It would appear directly under the menu here.
| | 07:49 | So if you have a header image with a
logo in it, I suggest you turn off the
| | 07:53 | tight title and tagline as well, and you
can also do some other customizations.
| | 07:58 | But you don't have to use 2012 theme
to follow this course, because I'm going
| | 08:02 | to be talking about how to use to the
plugin itself and also how to generally
| | 08:06 | configure the site.
| | 08:07 | So the things that I'm teaching you in
this course apply to any theme that you
| | 08:12 | might be working with.
| | 08:13 | The final thing I want you to do is
create proper permalinks for your sites.
| | 08:18 | If you look here, by default if I go
to the single post, you'll see that the
| | 08:23 | link to it is ?p=1.
| | 08:25 | That's because this is post
number one. But this isn't a very
| | 08:29 | readable permalink.
| | 08:30 | So I want to change the permalink
structure of my site so that it's easier to
| | 08:33 | find things, and I want to do that for
a specific reason that we'll address
| | 08:37 | later on in the course.
| | 08:39 | To change your permalinks, you go to
the Admin panel, go to Settings, and
| | 08:44 | Permalinks, and from here you can set
it to a bunch of different settings.
| | 08:49 | I recommend setting it to post
name here and click Save Changes.
| | 08:54 | If you go back to the front page now,
you should be able to navigate directly to
| | 08:58 | a post or go to any other pages, and
as you do you'll see the permalink for
| | 09:02 | instance to the About page says about.
| | 09:06 | If this doesn't work and you're using
a local host installation, it might be
| | 09:10 | because you don't have
the correct configurations.
| | 09:13 | It'll work on an external server.
| | 09:15 | So if you're doing this and you just
get error messages, just go back and change
| | 09:19 | permalinks back to defaults.
| | 09:21 | So go back to Dashboard > Settings >
Permalinks and change it back to Default.
| | 09:25 | That way you can run it on your local
computer with no problems and when you get
| | 09:30 | to the server that's on the web,
just change it back to Post name.
| | 09:35 | By planning and setting up key elements
of your ecommerce site before you start
| | 09:40 | working on the ecommerce solution itself,
you won't get distracted by or forget
| | 09:44 | key components of the site when you
start working with the plugin, because as
| | 09:48 | you'll see shortly, once you get into
the nitty-gritty of Easy Digital Downloads,
| | 09:53 | everything will start
fading into the background.
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2. Setting Up a Shop with Easy Digital DownloadsGetting and installing Easy Digital Downloads| 00:00 | Now that you've prepared and configured
your site, it's time to get and install
| | 00:04 | Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 00:06 | Like I have said a couple times, Easy
Digital Downloads is a free plugin and you
| | 00:10 | can get it from several different places.
| | 00:13 | If you go to the
easydigitaldownloads.com website, you can download the
| | 00:17 | plugin from right here, by clicking
the Download button, and this will place
| | 00:21 | it on your computer.
| | 00:22 | You can also go to the
WordPress.org plugin directory and find Easy
| | 00:27 | Digital Downloads here.
| | 00:28 | Here you'll also find information
about how it works, and you can see comments
| | 00:33 | from other people who are using it.
| | 00:35 | But the easiest way to install Easy
Digital Downloads is to simply do it from
| | 00:39 | the WordPress Admin panel.
| | 00:41 | If you go to your site and you go to the
dashboard, you can go down to Plugins,
| | 00:46 | click Add New, and then
search for Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 00:52 | You'll find the plugin right here at the top.
| | 00:54 | Make sure it's the one
that's made by Pippin Williamson.
| | 00:58 | When you find it click Install now and OK.
| | 01:02 | The plugin is downloaded onto your
computer, unpacked, and installed, and now
| | 01:06 | all you have to do is click Activate Plugin
and the plugin is activated onto your site.
| | 01:12 | To see that it works you will notice
that we now have a new button here in our
| | 01:16 | main menu that says Downloads.
| | 01:18 | This is where everything that happens
inside Easy Digital Downloads is managed.
| | 01:23 | So if you see the Downloads button,
it means that everything worked and
| | 01:27 | you're ready to go.
| | 01:29 | There, in just a few clicks of your
mouse, you have enabled your WordPress
| | 01:33 | site to become a full-fledged ecommerce
solution for selling digital and virtual products--
| | 01:38 | that is, after you've configured
everything and added products of all the
| | 01:42 | other components.
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| Initial configuration| 00:00 | Now that Easy Digital Downloads is
installed--and before we start configuring the
| | 00:05 | settings for the plugin itself--
it's a good idea to do some initial
| | 00:09 | configurations to your site
to include the new features.
| | 00:13 | What I mean by that is if you look
under Pages right now, you'll see that Easy
| | 00:17 | Digital Downloads has
added some new pages for us.
| | 00:20 | We have a Checkout page, a Purchase
History and Transaction Failed page, and we
| | 00:25 | also have a Purchase Confirmation page.
| | 00:28 | But if I go to the front page,
you'll see that because we created a new menu, we
| | 00:33 | don't have links to all these items.
| | 00:35 | So what I need to do is add
the new items into my menu.
| | 00:39 | So I'll go to Appearance and Menus, and
here is my existing menu, and now I want
| | 00:43 | to add those new features.
| | 00:45 | You see they appear here, under Pages.
| | 00:47 | You have Checkout, Purchase
History, Transaction Failed, so
| | 00:50 | I'm going to add those first, and then
make the hierarchy like this, and then I'll
| | 00:55 | also add in the Purchase Confirmation.
| | 00:58 | Now I can reorganize
these so that it looks good.
| | 01:01 | So I'll put Checkout here and Purchase
Confirmation under Checkout, like this, and
| | 01:08 | then I save it and go back and reload
my front page, and now you see we have
| | 01:13 | Checkout with Purchase Confirmation
and the other elements, and I can click on
| | 01:18 | them and go directly to them.
| | 01:19 | But you notice there's one thing
missing: there is no actual link to the shop
| | 01:24 | itself. And although we don't have any
products yet, we can still add that link.
| | 01:28 | And this part is a bit tricky.
| | 01:29 | The products that come from the Easy
Digital Downloads plugin are stored under a
| | 01:34 | subgroup that's called Downloads.
| | 01:37 | To see all the products we need to
point to the index page for the subgroup.
| | 01:41 | This is why you need to activate
your permalinks, because when you have
| | 01:45 | permalinks installed, you can go to the
root of the site, /downloads, and this is
| | 01:53 | what's going to become the
index for all your posts.
| | 01:57 | The problem is, right now
there are no downloads to see,
| | 02:00 | so we just get this nothing found.
| | 02:02 | So you're just going to
have to trust me on this.
| | 02:04 | If we make a custom link here--and I'm
going to go grab the actual URL to the
| | 02:09 | site from the home link. I paste that in,
and then I just say downloads and then
| | 02:16 | I can either say Store or download,
| | 02:17 | so I'm just going to say Store and add
that to the menu, and I'll drag it up so
| | 02:23 | it's directly under Home and save it.
| | 02:27 | Once we start adding products, you can
click on the Store button and it will
| | 02:32 | take you directly to the store that
has a list of all the products, but we'll
| | 02:35 | get to that later.
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| General settings| 00:00 | When you start working with Easy
Digital Downloads the first thing you need
| | 00:04 | to do is go through all the settings
and configure the plugin to work to your specifications.
| | 00:09 | Easy Digital Downloads has a lot of options and
allows for configurations on a very deep level.
| | 00:15 | In the following movies, we'll look at
the different configuration settings and
| | 00:18 | how they affect the site.
| | 00:20 | The configuration settings for Easy
Digital Downloads can be found in the Admin
| | 00:24 | panel, under Downloads and Settings.
| | 00:29 | From here, you have a series of tabs
under which you can set different settings,
| | 00:33 | so let's look at the General Settings first.
| | 00:36 | Off the top, you can enable or disable Test mode.
| | 00:39 | If you have Test mode enabled, no
live transactions are actually processed.
| | 00:44 | This is a great way of testing whether
or not the site works, and if you couple
| | 00:48 | it with a sandbox payment gateway, like
the PayPal sandbox, you can test whether
| | 00:54 | or not everything works properly on the site.
| | 00:57 | Next, you can set what pages are going
to be the checkout page, the success page,
| | 01:02 | and the fail transaction page.
| | 01:03 | Now you'll remember from the previous
movie that Easy Digital Downloads created
| | 01:08 | these pages for us, but in some cases
that may not have happened, or you may want
| | 01:13 | to use a different page as
the page for each of these items.
| | 01:17 | If so, you would go into the dropdown
here and pick what pages are going to
| | 01:21 | represent the checkout page, the
success page, and the fail transaction page.
| | 01:25 | Just remember that if you do so,
whatever content is currently on those pages
| | 01:29 | will go away and be replaced by these items.
| | 01:32 | Below that, you get to set the Currency Settings.
| | 01:35 | I'm currently in the US, which means I
have US dollars, but you can also choose
| | 01:40 | any number of other types of currencies,
including Norwegian Krone if you're
| | 01:44 | like me, or many other things.
| | 01:46 | You also get to set the currency
position, so by default it's set to Before,
| | 01:51 | because in the US and with most
countries that have the dollar sign the
| | 01:55 | dollar sign is before, but
you can also set it to after.
| | 01:58 | So for instance, if you're from Norway,
you will write Nok after the amount
| | 02:03 | instead of before it.
| | 02:05 | You also have the thousandths
separator and the decimal separator, because
| | 02:09 | whereas in North America you use the
comma as the thousandths separator and
| | 02:13 | the punctuation mark as the decimal separator,
| | 02:16 | in many other countries,
it's the opposite way around.
| | 02:18 | So these settings have to correspond
to whatever currency you collect money
| | 02:23 | in, and if you've use that currency
already, you'll know what those settings
| | 02:26 | are supposed to be.
| | 02:28 | Finally, you have this Usage Tracking box,
and this is purely for the developers
| | 02:32 | of Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 02:34 | If you check this, the people who made
the plugin will be able to track how you
| | 02:39 | are using the service.
| | 02:41 | They won't collect any personal
information, but they'll see how the plugin is
| | 02:45 | working, and especially
they'll see if it breaks down.
| | 02:47 | So if you want to contribute to
Easy Digital Downloads' future without
| | 02:52 | actually doing any work, you just
check this box and then you'll be sending
| | 02:56 | them information about how your plugin works
automatically, and you don't have to worry about it.
| | 03:00 | For a purely open-source standpoint,
having this checked may be a good idea, but
| | 03:05 | if you have a lot of traffic on your
site, you may want to uncheck it, because
| | 03:09 | it'll slow things down
just a marginal, little bit.
| | 03:11 | Once you make the changes to what you
want, click Save Changes, and the new
| | 03:16 | settings are updated.
| | 03:18 | How you configure the general settings
in Easy Digital Downloads depends on
| | 03:22 | your own needs and where, how, and to
whom you plan on selling your products.
| | 03:27 | Before you launch your site,
I encourage you to come back to this page and make
| | 03:31 | sure all your settings are correct.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Email settings| 00:00 | Being an online store, most of the
communication between you and your clients
| | 00:04 | will be done electronically through email.
| | 00:07 | Purchase receipts, links, validations,
and so on are all handled through email,
| | 00:12 | and the emails our clients receive
are pretty much your public persona.
| | 00:17 | Easy Digital Downloads gives you
full control of the emails sent to your
| | 00:21 | customers under the Emails tab and Settings.
| | 00:23 | By default, the emails that are sent
out by Easy Digital Downloads are pretty
| | 00:28 | nondescript. They just say "thanks for
your purchase" and here's the link. But you
| | 00:32 | can use the features under the Emails
tab to make far a more advanced email, and
| | 00:37 | I'll show you exactly how you can do that.
| | 00:39 | Off the top, you can choose whether or
not you want to use the default template
| | 00:43 | as your template or if you want to
use no template and send plain text only.
| | 00:48 | This basically has to do
with how the email is formatted.
| | 00:51 | If you write content in the box down
here and you use elements like a heading,
| | 00:55 | so Heading 1 or Heading 2, and you use
the default template, then the recipients
| | 01:00 | will see the headings displayed.
| | 01:02 | However, if you set it to no
template, plain text only, they'll just see
| | 01:06 | plain text in an email.
| | 01:08 | Keep in mind that even if you apply a
template, some people who get the email
| | 01:12 | will still only see the plain-text version;
it depends on how they receive the emails.
| | 01:17 | The Email Settings are pretty basic.
You put in a From Name, so that would
| | 01:20 | probably be the name of your
site. I'll say Hunger Guides.
| | 01:26 | The next one is From Email. This is the
email that this email will be sent from,
| | 01:30 | and it's also the email that
your clients will respond to.
| | 01:33 | My tip here is to create a special
email address just for this, so that when
| | 01:38 | people respond to your emails, you can
always see where they're coming from;
| | 01:42 | they're always responding from this form.
That way you don't have to get a huge
| | 01:47 | inbox full of all sorts of random
things; you only get the emails from this
| | 01:51 | particular form in that one
email address. So I'll put in
| | 01:55 | hungerguides@email.com.
| | 01:58 | You can also set in a Purchase Email
Subject, and here you should really put in
| | 02:04 | something that describes what it is,
| | 02:05 | something like, your purchase from your store.
| | 02:09 | Think about what you want that to say,
because that's the first thing people see
| | 02:13 | when they get the email.
| | 02:14 | Now comes the interesting part.
| | 02:16 | In this field here you can input any
content you want, and whatever content you
| | 02:20 | put in will become the content
people receive when they get the email.
| | 02:24 | And as you can see, this is a standard
WordPress editor, so here you can put in
| | 02:28 | regular content and you can also add
media. Just keep in mind when you add media
| | 02:33 | that a lot of people never see the
images when they get emails, so a lot of them
| | 02:37 | will just see big boxes.
| | 02:38 | So, unless you're adding a logo,
which is probably a good idea, you shouldn't
| | 02:42 | add too much other information.
| | 02:44 | But how do you input
information about the products people use?
| | 02:47 | Well, if you scroll down past the
input box, you'll see there's a list of all
| | 02:51 | these template tags, like download_list,
files_urls, name, and so on. And if
| | 02:57 | you put in these items, they will be
replaced dynamically with the correct information.
| | 03:02 | So we can use these templates tags to
create a meaningful email, and I'll show
| | 03:07 | you exactly how that's done, because it
can be a little daunting the first time.
| | 03:11 | So let's build out a full email.
| | 03:13 | So I'll say Hi, and then I want to have
the name of the actual person who bought
| | 03:17 | it, so we're going to use the template tag Name,
| | 03:20 | Your order from, and then we're going
to get the site name, so the name of the
| | 03:25 | site, placed on, and then we're going
to get the date. And as I'm doing this,
| | 03:32 | you'll see I'm using all these
different features, like Dates, the Date of
| | 03:35 | Purchase, Site Name, is
your site name, and so on.
| | 03:39 | So your order from site name
placed on date has been completed.
| | 03:47 | Your order details are
shown below for your reference.
| | 03:56 | And then I'll put it in a headline.
I'll say Order and then put it as H2. Then
| | 04:02 | I'll say download list, and I'll hold
Shift and hit Return to go just one line
| | 04:10 | below, Cart subtotal, Tax and Order
Total, and I'll make this last one bold.
| | 04:26 | So I'll go ahead and hit the Bold.
And then I want to give the purchase
| | 04:30 | details. I'll say Purchase Details, make
that one an H2 too, and then we'll put in
| | 04:37 | the purchase details.
| | 04:38 | So as you can see, formatting an
email like this and using these different
| | 04:44 | template tags is quite easy, and you
also see that the template tags are
| | 04:48 | pretty easy to understand.
| | 04:49 | So full name is full name of the person
and date is a date and a Payment ID is
| | 04:54 | the payment ID and so on.
| | 04:55 | So feel free to be creative
about how you format this.
| | 04:59 | When you're done building this template,
scroll down to the bottom, click Save
| | 05:04 | Changes, and then click on
Preview Purchase Receipt.
| | 05:08 | Now, you'll actually see what this
purchase receipt looks like, and you'll see
| | 05:11 | here we have Hi John, Your order from
Hunger Guides placed on February 28 has
| | 05:17 | been completed, and then you
actually get things like the Sample Product
| | 05:20 | Title,and the actual download for that
and how much people paid for it and all
| | 05:24 | the necessary information.
| | 05:26 | So this template that I built is very
good. You can of course enhance it by
| | 05:31 | putting in your logo or a big header or
whatever you want, but you can use these
| | 05:35 | template tags to make a fairly advanced email.
| | 05:38 | At the very bottom on this page,
you also have Sale Notification Emails.
| | 05:44 | So this is the email address or
addresses that sale notifications will be sent
| | 05:48 | to. And just like with the reply to email,
I recommend you set up a custom email
| | 05:53 | just to receive the sale notifications.
| | 05:56 | That way all your sale notifications end
up in the same place and you can manage
| | 06:00 | them from one location, rather than
having them in your email address and then
| | 06:03 | your inbox will be full of
all sorts of different things.
| | 06:06 | This is an option and you don't have to
do it, but based on my experience, it's
| | 06:10 | a better idea to handle it that way.
| | 06:12 | You can also add multiple addresses
here simply by adding new addresses on a
| | 06:17 | new line, like that.
| | 06:20 | When you made the changes, click Save
Changes, and all your settings are updated,
| | 06:26 | and you're good to go.
| | 06:28 | Customizing the email settings and
the email message will make the user
| | 06:31 | experience for the customer more streamlined.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Styles settings| 00:00 | The Styles tab under the Settings is
pretty basic, but it can be powerful if
| | 00:04 | you're willing to get dirty with some CSS code.
| | 00:07 | To accommodate designers and
developers a lot of plugins, like Easy Digital
| | 00:12 | Downloads, comes with an ability to
turn the styles off. You can see it right
| | 00:16 | here; it says Disable Styles.
| | 00:18 | And if you check it, you turn of all
styles that are shipped with the plugin.
| | 00:22 | When you do that, you can then restyle
all the content and make it look any way
| | 00:26 | you want, but of course that requires
that you actually write all the content and all
| | 00:31 | the styles necessary to make everything work.
| | 00:34 | If you're going to do this,
I recommend you go into the plugin and find the
| | 00:38 | original style sheet and then use that as a
template for styling the rest of the content.
| | 00:43 | If you don't want to disable the style
sheets--and in most cases you don't want
| | 00:47 | to do--then you can choose what kind
of button style you want to use for the
| | 00:51 | store buttons. So you either have a
Button or Plain Text which is basically a
| | 00:56 | link. And you can also choose the
Default Button Color. You have Gray, Blue,
| | 01:01 | Green, Yellow, and Dark Gray to choose
from. And you can experiment with these to
| | 01:05 | see what works best for your site.
| | 01:07 | Now you should get a really clear idea
what I mean with Easy Digital Downloads
| | 01:11 | is a very basic and simple-to-use
plugin, because in many other plugins the
| | 01:16 | style settings are quite advanced.
But here you simply have the ability to
| | 01:20 | disable and also to set the
buttons styles and that's it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taxes settings| 00:00 | Because the products you can sell
through Easy Digital Downloads are either
| | 00:04 | digital downloads or virtual services,
the Tax section for the plugin is vastly
| | 00:09 | simplified from what you normally
see in an ecommerce application.
| | 00:13 | This is because in most cases digital
products and services are either taxed
| | 00:18 | based on your location or in
some cases not taxed at all.
| | 00:22 | Even so, I strongly recommend
consulting a tax professional before setting up
| | 00:26 | your tax configuration.
| | 00:28 | The last thing you want is to break a
tax law while running your ecommerce site.
| | 00:32 | To enable taxes you need to check the
Enable Taxes button, and then you need to
| | 00:37 | enter the Tax Rate you want to use, for
example 6.5 or 12.5 or whatever your tax rate is.
| | 00:45 | Then you have to decide who you want to
apply that tax to. You can apply it to
| | 00:49 | everyone or to local residents only.
| | 00:51 | This is because depending on where
you live, the tax law will be different.
| | 00:56 | In some jurisdictions you have to apply
sales tax to everyone who buys a product,
| | 01:01 | but in others you may only have to apply
sales tax to local residents, either in
| | 01:05 | your area or in your state or in your
country. Anyone that's outside of that
| | 01:10 | area does not have to pay
sales tax on your products.
| | 01:13 | So pick either Everyone or Local
residents depending on your requirements, and
| | 01:18 | this is where you should really talk to a
tax professional to find out what is correct.
| | 01:23 | Then you can decide if you want to include
the tax in your individual product prices.
| | 01:28 | If you live in Europe, this is fairly
common. You see a price and that price
| | 01:31 | includes tax. But if you're in North
America the commonality is to list the
| | 01:36 | price, and then add the taxes at
the end when you'd make the purchase.
| | 01:39 | At the bottom here, you can choose
whether or not you want to calculate a tax
| | 01:43 | before or after a discount.
| | 01:46 | By default the taxes are calculated
before discounts and then the
| | 01:50 | discount is applied afterwards, but
you can change this so that the tax is
| | 01:54 | calculated after the discount is applied.
| | 01:57 | This is a preference thing, and you
can choose what you want to do with it.
| | 02:01 | Getting the tax settings right the
first time will save you a lot of trouble
| | 02:05 | down the road once your store becomes popular,
| | 02:08 | so get some help here and make
sure everything is as it should be.
| | 02:12 | A small investment in getting help from
a tax professional can save you lots of
| | 02:16 | money in the long term.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Miscellaneous settings| 00:00 | The Misc tab under Settings provides
miscellaneous settings regarding how the
| | 00:05 | shop operates, how information is
gathered from your customers, and how the
| | 00:09 | terms of agreement is displayed.
| | 00:11 | Off the top, you have
this box for disabling AJAX.
| | 00:15 | AJAX is the dynamic function on the site
that allows the shopping cart to reload
| | 00:20 | without reloading the page.
| | 00:23 | If for some reason the shopping cart
is not working or if you encounter weird
| | 00:26 | problems with reloading on the pages,
you can try checking this box and
| | 00:30 | disabling AJAX and see if that fixes
the problem. It's rare, but it does happen.
| | 00:36 | Next you can choose to redirect to
checkout immediately after someone clicks on
| | 00:40 | an item to add it to their cart.
| | 00:43 | If you think people only going to
buy one product from your site, this is
| | 00:46 | probably a good idea.
| | 00:47 | But if you have multiple products and
you expect people to buy more than one
| | 00:51 | product at a time, I would leave this unchecked.
| | 00:53 | You can disable live credit card
validation by checking this box. The live
| | 00:58 | credit card validation is when you
punch in the credit card number, it will
| | 01:02 | actually check whether or not
this is a valid credit card number.
| | 01:05 | That doesn't mean it contacts the
credit card agency to make sure that the
| | 01:08 | number is actually a real credit card.
What it does is checks whether or not it
| | 01:13 | looks like a credit card number,
meaning if you enter more or less numbers than
| | 01:17 | necessary, it'll tell you.
| | 01:18 | The next box is one I would check.
It disables guest checkout, meaning anyone
| | 01:23 | who buys a product has to sign up for
an account. And this is a really good
| | 01:27 | idea because this is a download and
chances are every now and again, you'll
| | 01:31 | find people who mess up the actual
download or something else goes wrong.
| | 01:36 | That way if you force them to set up an
account, they'll be able to log back in and
| | 01:40 | check the download later and also get things
like the receipt and all that kind of stuff.
| | 01:44 | If you check this, you should also check
the next one, Show Register/Login Form.
| | 01:49 | This allows people to either register
or log in if they're existing users when
| | 01:54 | they get to the checkout page.
| | 01:56 | That way, you don't have to have them
log in first and then go to the checkout;
| | 02:01 | they just go to checkout and
then they can automatically log in.
| | 02:03 | Download Link Expiration is an interesting one.
| | 02:07 | When you sell downloads you want to
limit how long it can take from the
| | 02:11 | purchases made to the person can actually
download it, to avoid people cheating the
| | 02:16 | system and getting extra downloads.
By default it's set to 24 hours, meaning
| | 02:21 | after 24 hours, the customer can no
longer download the product unless you
| | 02:25 | specifically let them do so. But you can
change this to any value you want.
| | 02:29 | This is counted in hours, so you have to
figure out how many hours you want to extend
| | 02:34 | it for, or you can also shorten it
to just a few hours if you want to.
| | 02:39 | At the bottom here, you can disable
redownloads, so that people can only
| | 02:43 | download the product once.
| | 02:45 | Enabling this box is
controversial, in my opinion.
| | 02:48 | I've experienced this several times
where I've bought a product online and then,
| | 02:52 | as I download it, something happens.
Either the site time is out or my computer
| | 02:56 | gets disconnected or something like that.
| | 02:59 | The logical thing for me to do then,
is go back, log back in, and try to
| | 03:03 | download the product again.
| | 03:04 | But if you've checked this box then,
I wouldn't be able to download again, even
| | 03:09 | if the download wasn't completed the
first time, and I would have to contact the
| | 03:13 | site owner and say, hey!
| | 03:14 | It didn't work. I have to
redownload it again. Can you reactivate it?
| | 03:18 | So I would leave this unchecked.
| | 03:21 | The next options here have
to do with terms of agreement.
| | 03:25 | And here I'm going to show you a little trick.
| | 03:27 | First of all, you should always check
this box to make sure people have to agree
| | 03:31 | to the terms when they buy something
from your store. This is fairly standard,
| | 03:35 | and it's a way of protecting yourself
from weird legal issues happening once
| | 03:40 | people buy products from you.
| | 03:42 | Now that you've checked this, you of
course need actual terms of agreement and
| | 03:46 | if you remember of the top of this
course, I said you needed to create a
| | 03:50 | separate page for that.
| | 03:51 | So if we go the site, you'll see under
LEGAL, I have a TERMS & CONDITIONS page,
| | 03:56 | which is basically the same thing.
So here, I'm going to be clever.
| | 04:01 | Instead of typing in the terms of
agreement here, I'm simply going to make a
| | 04:05 | link to them, and that way it
won't cluster up the checkout page.
| | 04:09 | First, I have to set the label that's
going to go next to the terms checkbox, so
| | 04:13 | I'll say Agree to Terms & Conditions.
And then I'm going to say Read the full
| | 04:23 | Terms & Conditions for Hunger Guides,
and then I'll make Terms & Conditions into
| | 04:33 | a link pointing to the actual page.
| | 04:36 | So here I can find my page, click Open
link in new window, and click Add Link.
| | 04:45 | That way we're not clustering up our entire
checkout page for the lots of information;
| | 04:49 | we're just pointing people to the Terms
& Conditions page and then they click
| | 04:53 | on the link and jump to it.
| | 04:55 | At the very bottom you can change the
Completes Purchase Text and also the Add to Cart Text.
| | 05:00 | By default the buttons say Complete
Purchase and Add to Cart, but if you want
| | 05:04 | to, you can change them to something else.
| | 05:06 | This would be useful if you're making
it an international store, so it's not in
| | 05:10 | English or for some other reason.
| | 05:12 | By default, you already have text there,
but you can change it using these boxes.
| | 05:17 | After making all the changes, remember to
click Save Changes and the changes are applied.
| | 05:22 | When you sell products online it's
always prudent to have a proper terms and
| | 05:26 | conditions page, so your customers
know what they are agreeing to when
| | 05:30 | they purchase a product and you know you're
covered legally when something goes wrong.
| | 05:34 | This is a especially important when
you're selling digital products or virtual
| | 05:38 | services, because it's harder to show
that a customer in fact obtained something
| | 05:42 | in return for their financial transaction.
| | 05:45 | It is better if you overdo things
on this tab then not do it at all.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Setting Up Payment GatewaysSetting up PayPal payments| 00:00 | Like everything else in the Easy
Digital Downloads plugin, the payment gateways
| | 00:05 | options are straightforward and easy to set up.
| | 00:08 | By default, you have two payment
gateways: PayPal and TestPayment.
| | 00:14 | TestPayment is a testing system
which, when activated, allows you to make
| | 00:18 | purchases inside your store
to test that everything works.
| | 00:22 | PayPal is, well, PayPal. You can add more
payment gateways by adding extensions to
| | 00:28 | Easy Digital Downloads. There are both
free and for-pay extensions that will add
| | 00:33 | other standard payment gateways
that you may use on the internet.
| | 00:37 | You'll also notice that some of the
standard things you often see as payment
| | 00:41 | options on websites are not here, things
like cash on delivery and check payments.
| | 00:47 | That has a simple explanation: Easy
Digital Downloads will setup to sell digital
| | 00:52 | products online, so taking cash
payments on delivery or taking check payments
| | 00:57 | doesn't really make much sense.
| | 00:59 | If you want to use payment gateways,
you need to activate them by checking
| | 01:03 | whatever payment gateways you want to
use, and if you add extensions, you'll see
| | 01:07 | more listed here at the top.
| | 01:09 | So let's say I want to use PayPal.
| | 01:11 | Well, I check PayPal, but I make sure
that my default gateway is set to PayPal,
| | 01:18 | and then I need to enter
my PayPal settings down here.
| | 01:21 | Now here's a trick: if you want to use
PayPal as your payment system, but you
| | 01:26 | want to run tests on your site
first to make sure everything works,
| | 01:30 | instead of using PayPal as PayPal and
then sending money back and forth between
| | 01:34 | real accounts, you can use the PayPal sandbox.
| | 01:38 | The PayPal sandbox is found under
sandbox.paypal.com, and here you can set up
| | 01:44 | testing accounts under PayPal that
will allow you to setup customer and
| | 01:49 | merchant accounts inside a sandbox
environment, and then you can assign money
| | 01:54 | to the customer accounts and make
payments to the merchants accounts and see
| | 01:59 | that payments are actually being made
and transactions are happening between
| | 02:02 | these two accounts, and you can run a
full test of your site without actually
| | 02:06 | spending any real money.
| | 02:08 | Setting up the PayPal sandbox is a
little bit of work, and it's outside the scope
| | 02:13 | of this course, but it's not hard to do.
| | 02:15 | So if you want to use PayPal as your
payment portal, you should go set up a
| | 02:20 | PayPal sandbox account and then use
that information to set up your site first.
| | 02:25 | Because, once you have the sandbox
account, it works exactly like your
| | 02:29 | normal PayPal account.
| | 02:31 | You simply go down here, enter the
email address for your sandbox merchant
| | 02:37 | account or for your real PayPal payment
account, and then you select the PayPal Page Style.
| | 02:43 | This is the page that people land on
when they make a PayPal payment, and you can
| | 02:48 | choose between different styles inside
the PayPal settings. And then you just
| | 02:53 | click Save Changes and PayPal
will be activated on your site.
| | 02:57 | So, whether you're using the
sandbox or a real PayPal account, it's the
| | 03:02 | exact same process.
| | 03:04 | Now there are a couple of more settings
here. You'll see that it says Accepted
| | 03:07 | Payment Method Icons, and here you
can check different icons. You have
| | 03:11 | MasterCard, Visa, American
Express, Discover, and also PayPal.
| | 03:16 | These are solely icons that
appear on the checkout page.
| | 03:20 | So if you want to show the customer
that you are taking payments through all
| | 03:25 | these different options, you can
check them and the icons will appear.
| | 03:29 | Now, these icons are not actually active
icons, so it doesn't mean that if people
| | 03:33 | click on Visa they go to Visa payment;
it just means that you are displaying to
| | 03:37 | the customer what type of
payments you are taking.
| | 03:40 | Finally, at the bottom here you have this
box that says Disable PayPal IPN Verification.
| | 03:46 | This is an option you can toggle on
if payments are not getting marked as
| | 03:50 | complete. That means the communication
between your site and PayPal isn't working
| | 03:55 | quite right, so when people are paying
through PayPal the payment is coming in,
| | 04:00 | but that message is not being sent
back to the site, so the payment is not
| | 04:04 | marked inside your site as complete.
It should work but if it doesn't, you can
| | 04:09 | try by clicking this to
see if that changes things.
| | 04:12 | So it's kind of failsafe to
see that things work properly.
| | 04:16 | Once you've made your changes, put
in your PayPal account, and set up
| | 04:19 | everything so it's correct, click
Save Changes and now you're ready to take
| | 04:24 | payments on your site.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up Stripe payments with an extension| 00:00 | Easy Digital Downloads comes with a
PayPal payment gateway out of the box, but
| | 00:05 | you can add on additional payment
gateways by adding extensions to the plugin.
| | 00:10 | One such additional gateway that's
gaining popularity is one called Stripe.
| | 00:15 | Stripe is a solution created by
developers for developers to create a more
| | 00:20 | streamlined payment process for people who
are taking payments through credit cards.
| | 00:25 | Just like PayPal, it costs a bit of
money to use it. As you can see here, the
| | 00:29 | pricing is 2.9% + 30 cents per
successful charge, which is marginally more than
| | 00:35 | what PayPal charges, by a very small margin.
| | 00:38 | What you get with Stripe that you
don't have with PayPal is that the payment
| | 00:42 | actually happens on your site.
You never leave the site; you just get this nice
| | 00:46 | little box that shows up and
people can make the payment directly.
| | 00:50 | On the other hand, if you're using
Stripe, you must have an SSL certificate on
| | 00:55 | your site; otherwise, this
transaction will not be secure.
| | 00:58 | So while Stripe might cost almost
the same as PayPal, to ensure a secure
| | 01:04 | transaction, you have to
invest in an SSL certificate.
| | 01:07 | You should do that anyway, but it becomes
especially important if you're using Stripe.
| | 01:12 | So how do we include Stripe into our site?
| | 01:14 | Well, you have to get an extension to do
so, and the extension costs a bit of money.
| | 01:19 | To get the extension, you go to the Easy
Digital Downloads website and then you
| | 01:24 | go to Extend > Extensions.
| | 01:27 | From here you see all the different
extensions that are available for Easy
| | 01:31 | Digital Downloads, and there's quite a
few of them. These are all things that you
| | 01:35 | can add to your site to make it
easier to use or to add functionality.
| | 01:40 | In this case, we're looking for gateways,
so I'll click on Gateways, and that will
| | 01:43 | narrow down the search. And here you
see all the different gateways that are
| | 01:46 | available currently. You have
Authorize.Net and eWAY and PayPal Digital Goods
| | 01:51 | and so on and so on.
| | 01:53 | What I'm looking for right now is
Stripe Payment Gateway, so I'll select
| | 01:57 | that one, and then you see here the
price is for a single site $49.00 for 2-5
| | 02:03 | Sites $82.00, and for unlimited use, if you are
a developer, you would choose it for $123.00.
| | 02:10 | You can follow the purchase process
here and when you end up purchasing the
| | 02:13 | product, you get a ZIP file with the
actual payment gateway. This is a plugin
| | 02:20 | just like any other plugin, so once
it's on your computer, to install it, all you
| | 02:25 | have to do is go back to the site, go to
Plugins > Add New, go to Upload, navigate
| | 02:34 | to the file, and it's on my desktop,
select it, click Open, and click Install Now.
| | 02:42 | Now the zipped file is unpacked,
installed, and I can active the plugin.
| | 02:47 | Once the plugin is activated, I can go
back to Downloads, go to Settings, and when
| | 02:53 | I go Payment Gateways, you'll see
we now have Stripe as an option.
| | 02:58 | If I scroll down, you'll also see we
now have Stripe Settings in addition to
| | 03:02 | our PayPal settings.
| | 03:04 | Now here comes the interesting part:
when you set up an account with Stripe it's
| | 03:09 | automatically set to TEST mode.
| | 03:11 | In TEST mode you can make payments to
the account without actually making real
| | 03:15 | payments, and that way you can test your site.
| | 03:18 | So to hook this up to your new
plugin that you have inside Easy Digital
| | 03:22 | Downloads, you need the API keys.
| | 03:25 | So if you go to Your Account here and
go to Account Settings and log in, you can
| | 03:34 | go to API Keys, and from here you have
Test Secret Key and Test Publishable Key,
| | 03:40 | and you also have the Live Secret
Key and the Live Publishable Key.
| | 03:43 | So now you just have to copy these and use
the Copy Key to Clipboard button.
| | 03:48 | Then you can back in and see Test Secret Key
team and Test Publishable Key and Live
| | 04:00 | Secret Key and Live Publishable Key.
| | 04:11 | At the very top here, you can also enter
the License Key for the Stripe payment
| | 04:15 | gateway you downloaded. It comes in
the email you get when you purchase the
| | 04:20 | plugin, and this will allow you to get
automatic upgrades to the plugin itself.
| | 04:24 | So that's not Easy Digital Downloads;
that's just this extra plugin that adds Stripe.
| | 04:30 | Once you have added the Live Secret
Key, the Live Publishable Key, the Test
| | 04:34 | Secret Key, and the Test Publishable
Key, you're able to test and run real
| | 04:38 | payments from Stripe on your site.
| | 04:41 | When you test Stripe as a payment
option on your site, you may run into an issue
| | 04:46 | where something doesn't open right or
something doesn't work at all. If that
| | 04:49 | happens, try to check this
Stripe JS Fallback Support box.
| | 04:54 | This can be because of a JavaScript
conflict that happens in some cases with
| | 04:59 | plugins, and by checking this box you
are either enabling or disabling a specific
| | 05:04 | type of JavaScript that
would avoid this problem.
| | 05:08 | Choosing to go with Stripe as the
payment gateway removes the PayPal layer that
| | 05:13 | takes the visitor away from your site.
| | 05:15 | As an added bonus, Stripe doesn't hold
payments like PayPal tends to do if they
| | 05:20 | think there's something wrong with a
payment system, and as a result, using Stripe
| | 05:24 | will get you paid faster and more consistently.
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|
|
4. Adding Products to Your StoreAdding a new product| 00:00 | Now that your store is set up and
fully configured, it's time to start adding
| | 00:03 | products. Because Easy Digital
Downloads works with the core features of
| | 00:09 | WordPress, adding a new product is
pretty much the same as adding a new page or
| | 00:13 | post. You just have to fill in some
more information about your product.
| | 00:17 | For this example, I'm going to build a
site that sales city guides and recipes
| | 00:22 | and focuses on food.
| | 00:24 | I already have a city guide and
some information here on my desktop.
| | 00:28 | I have a text file with all the
different information. I also have the actual
| | 00:32 | download, and I have some photos.
| | 00:35 | And through the next couple of movies,
we're going to look at how all of this can
| | 00:38 | be incorporated into an actual product page.
| | 00:41 | The first thing I need to
do is create a new product.
| | 00:44 | Under Easy Digital Downloads, a product is
called a download, and you make a new one,
| | 00:49 | either by going to New and selecting
Download or by going to the Dashboard and
| | 00:55 | going to Downloads and clicking Add New.
| | 00:58 | Adding a new download looks
exactly the same as adding a new post.
| | 01:03 | You simply go and put in the title
here, so I'm going to my document and grab
| | 01:07 | the title, and then you can enter in
your text information. So I'll go back
| | 01:14 | again, find all my text, copy it, and
then I'm going to use Paste as Plain Text
| | 01:20 | to paste it in to get bit of a new
styling. Then I can do some further styling
| | 01:25 | if I want to. I can clean it up a bit.
I can put some bolding on things.
| | 01:32 | And finally, I have to assign categories and tags.
| | 01:36 | Now even though it says Categories and
Tags here, these are categories and tags
| | 01:40 | that only apply to downloads or
products, so don't confuse these with the
| | 01:45 | regular categories and tags
that you see in a regular post.
| | 01:49 | So here I'm going to create a new
category for my downloads that's called City
| | 01:53 | Guides, because this is a city guide.
I'm going to have several of those. And if
| | 01:57 | I wanted to, I could also add a category
for recipes and whatever else I want to sell.
| | 02:02 | I can also create tags, so here I'll
say boston and east coast and usa as tags,
| | 02:10 | and that way people can navigate and
see all other things that are tagged with
| | 02:15 | similar items. Just to make sure
everything works so far, I'm now going to save
| | 02:20 | my draft and then click on Preview.
| | 02:24 | Now I can see what my product looks
like on the actual site, and here you see we
| | 02:28 | have the title, we have the text with
my bolding, and then we have a big button
| | 02:32 | at the bottom here that says $0.00 and Purchase.
| | 02:36 | That means that we've added a new
product and now we can go further and add more
| | 02:40 | information. That's next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Download configuration| 00:00 | Now that we've created a new product, or
download as it's called in Easy Digital
| | 00:06 | Downloads, it's time to add the
actual downloadable product to our page.
| | 00:11 | If you'll remember from the last
movie, we entered information about the
| | 00:15 | product, so we have the title and also
some text describing the product. And as
| | 00:19 | we can seen on the preview page here, we
even have a Purchase button. But there's
| | 00:24 | no product associated with this page.
| | 00:26 | So, if people buy this product, they won't
actually get anything. That's the next step.
| | 00:31 | We need to add the actual
product to the product page.
| | 00:35 | This is done in the Edit Download page,
where you already entered information.
| | 00:40 | If you scroll further down on this page,
you'll see you have a panel here called
| | 00:45 | Download Configuration, and this is
where you add the actual downloadable files.
| | 00:50 | Off the top, you can toggle on and off
whether you want to enable variable pricing.
| | 00:56 | So, this is if you want to have
variable pricing based on different features in
| | 01:01 | the product. I'm going to leave that unchecked.
| | 01:03 | Then you have set a price for the
products. I am going to set this to $10.
| | 01:07 | And now you can add File Downloads, and
you notice you can add one or several
| | 01:12 | different files here.
| | 01:13 | For each file you have set a name, so I
am going to set it to Boston City Guide,
| | 01:18 | and you also have to point to a file.
| | 01:20 | So, here I am going to upload a file.
I'll go to Upload Files, Select Files, and
| | 01:27 | then find the file I want.
| | 01:29 | I'll click Open. This is a pdf file,
so now I can set a title for it. So I'll
| | 01:34 | call it Boston City Guide by Hunger
Guides and click Insert into post.
| | 01:44 | Now you see the URL that points
directly to this file on my server, and if I
| | 01:49 | wanted to, I could click Add New File and
this would add an additional field and
| | 01:53 | here I could upload another file.
| | 01:55 | Now that you have uploaded the files,
you can set a File Download Limit.
| | 02:00 | By default this is set to 0, which
means there is no limit, and people can
| | 02:03 | redownload a file as many times as they want.
| | 02:07 | But in certain cases, you may want to
limit the number of times people are able
| | 02:11 | to download the same file. This could
be if you're worried that people might go
| | 02:15 | to different computers, and
redownload it again, distribute the file in that
| | 02:18 | way, or there could be other reasons.
| | 02:20 | But if you do set a limit to this,
chances are people will try to download a file
| | 02:25 | and then something goes wrong, or they
delete file and then they'll have to
| | 02:29 | contact you again to get the file one more time.
| | 02:31 | So, this is a decision you have to make,
whether or not you want to set a limit or not.
| | 02:37 | At the very bottom you have this Button
Option, Disable the automatic output of
| | 02:41 | the purchase button.
| | 02:43 | If you check this, the button on the
product page will disappear. Now you're
| | 02:49 | probably are going to ask,
why would I want to do that?
| | 02:52 | Because then I lose the button
and people can't by the product.
| | 02:55 | Well if you use regular posts--let's say
you have a blog and you want to add a
| | 03:01 | product to the blog--you can add a
button to the blog posts. And there's a good
| | 03:06 | chance that you may not want to use
this actual product page at all, and then
| | 03:10 | you can take that Purchase button off.
| | 03:12 | But for pretty much every case, I would say
leave this unchecked because it's pointless.
| | 03:18 | Once you've added the downloadable
product, we'll take a look at the few
| | 03:22 | remaining features on this page.
| | 03:24 | On the very bottom here you have Product
Notes where you can leave notes about the product.
| | 03:29 | These notes will be added
to the purchase receipt.
| | 03:32 | So, when people buy the product you may
leave a note like, you have to actually
| | 03:36 | download the product, here's
a link, or something like that.
| | 03:39 | And if you scroll all the way up to
the top here, you'll see that we have a
| | 03:43 | panel called Download Stats. Here you
have two links. You have links to the
| | 03:48 | Sales Log, and you'll see that as you
makes sales, this number will change from
| | 03:52 | 0 to something else, and you'll see the
Earnings, and you have a link to the File Download Log.
| | 03:58 | Now to demonstrate how those works, I
have already created a product and sold
| | 04:03 | some versions of it.
| | 04:04 | So, if I go back here and open the
Boston City Guides that have already been
| | 04:09 | sold, you'll see here we have 4 Sales.
And if you click View Sales Log, we get to
| | 04:15 | a log that shows all the sales. And if
I go back and click View File Download
| | 04:21 | Log, you'll see that although I sold the
product to four people, only two of them
| | 04:27 | have actually downloaded the product.
| | 04:28 | Now that I've added actual products to my
product page, I'm almost ready to publish.
| | 04:34 | The one thing remaining is I need
to make this look good by adding some
| | 04:38 | images. That's next.
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| Adding images to a product| 00:00 | Images are very important if you
want to make sales from your shop.
| | 00:04 | The more images you have and the better
and more detailed those images are, the
| | 00:09 | more likely your customers are to
trust you and want to buy your products.
| | 00:13 | This is just as true for digital
downloads as it is for physical products.
| | 00:17 | Investing time and money in good
product photography or screen grabs will go a
| | 00:22 | long way in securing sales for your
business. Because of how Easy Digital
| | 00:26 | Downloads is wired, adding images
requires a bit of a convoluted process.
| | 00:31 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:33 | What I want to do is add the
images I have here onto my posts.
| | 00:38 | I want to have one image at the top
of the post, and then I want to have a
| | 00:41 | gallery of the other three below the post.
| | 00:44 | So, in particular I want to have a large
image here at the top, and then I want
| | 00:48 | to have a gallery with three
images here after the first paragraph.
| | 00:52 | Now, if you have ever worked with
WordPress, before this should be pretty simple.
| | 00:56 | You simply go in and you add pictures
into your post and everything should be fine.
| | 01:01 | But in the case of Easy Digital
Downloads, that isn't quite the case.
| | 01:05 | Instead, you have to go through this
other kind of process, and I'll show you
| | 01:09 | exactly what you need to do.
| | 01:10 | The first thing I want to do is create
a featured image, and that's exactly how
| | 01:15 | you would normally do it.
| | 01:16 | You simply scroll down and click Set
featured image and then you navigate to
| | 01:21 | upload your files, you find the
file, and you upload the file to the site.
| | 01:27 | Now you can put in information.
I'll say Boston skyline, and I'll copy that
| | 01:33 | and put it into the alternate text, and
I'll delete the description and click
| | 01:38 | Set featured image.
| | 01:39 | If I now save this and view the
Download, you'll see we have a nice featured
| | 01:45 | image here at the top.
| | 01:47 | The next step is to add this gallery with
the three additional images at the bottom.
| | 01:53 | If you're used to working with
WordPress, you now probably think that what you
| | 01:57 | need to do is place your cursor on the
line and then go into Add Media and just
| | 02:01 | dump the images in. That will not
work, and I'll explain to you why.
| | 02:05 | If you add the images in like that,
Easy Digital Downloads will assume that those
| | 02:09 | images are images that you want to
sell, and therefore the images will be
| | 02:13 | protected unless you actively buy the product.
| | 02:16 | So, therefore, instead of getting the
images, you just get boxes with nothing in
| | 02:20 | them, and if you click on them, it will
actually say, you cannot access these
| | 02:24 | images because you haven't bought them yet.
| | 02:26 | But there is a way around this, and
it's only available now with the newer
| | 02:29 | version of WordPress, because now
we can attach any image in our image
| | 02:33 | library to any post.
| | 02:35 | So, what I need to do is open media in a
separate window, so I'll click on Media
| | 02:40 | here and open it in a new tab. Then I
am going to add in the images using this
| | 02:45 | Media uploader instead.
| | 02:46 | So I'll click Add New to add the
images. I'll select the files and highlight
| | 02:51 | them. The files are now
uploaded and I can go in and edit them,
| | 02:56 | so I'll click Edit, and I go to
Image Editor, and from here I can put in
| | 03:01 | alternate text if I want to and
update it. And then I can do the same for
| | 03:09 | the two other ones.
| | 03:10 | And now that I have these images
uploaded, I can go back into my post.
| | 03:16 | I'll place my cursor where
I want my gallery to appear.
| | 03:19 | I click Add Media, and now I can
check the images I want to, so I'll check
| | 03:24 | this one and then I'll hold down Shift.
You see the three appear down here
| | 03:30 | at the bottom, and now I can click
on Create Gallery and I'll create a
| | 03:34 | gallery with these three.
| | 03:35 | So, when I now click Create a New
Gallery, you'll see the three images. I can now
| | 03:40 | reorganize the, in any way I want.
| | 03:46 | I can put a caption for each of the
images if want and I can also set if I want
| | 03:50 | the Gallery Setting to link to the
media file or to the attachment page.
| | 03:55 | In this case, I want to link it to the
media file and then I click Insert Gallery.
| | 04:00 | Now we insert a Standard WordPress
Gallery, and these images will actually work.
| | 04:05 | You can't preview this inside the
WordPress Editor, so to see what this looks
| | 04:09 | like, we have to now click Update and
then view the Download. And here you see
| | 04:15 | the big at the top and when we scroll
down, we have those three smaller images.
| | 04:20 | And if you click on them, you
jump directly to that main image.
| | 04:23 | Now of course that's not the best
user experience. What I want to do is pop
| | 04:27 | this up in a light box.
| | 04:29 | So, I am finally going to go and add a
little plugin, so I'll go to Plugins >
| | 04:33 | Add New and add a plugin called
fancybox for wordpress, install fancybox for
| | 04:44 | WordPress, activate it, and then I can jump
back to my Downloads and view Boston City Guide.
| | 04:54 | And when I click on these they'll open
in a separate window and I can navigate
| | 04:59 | between the different images.
| | 05:00 | So, as you can see, you can add image
galleries and images to your post; you just
| | 05:10 | have to remember that to add images in
your post content here, you have to upload
| | 05:15 | them manually through the media
uploader and then add them into the post.
| | 05:20 | You can add them in either as
galleries or as single images in the text; that
| | 05:24 | makes no difference.
| | 05:25 | You just have to make sure to use the
media uploader when you add the image in.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Customizing Your StoreConfiguring the store front page| 00:00 | Now that you have Easy Digital
Downloads set up and you have products to sell,
| | 00:04 | you can start configuring your
storefront page to ensure your visitors find what
| | 00:09 | they're looking for right away.
| | 00:10 | I've added some extra products here so that
you can see what I'm talking about better.
| | 00:14 | I have added a bunch of
products in three categories.
| | 00:18 | The categories are City Guides, like the
first one we added, and then we also have
| | 00:22 | recipes and live cooking classes.
| | 00:25 | Now the challenge becomes making a
front page that drives people to these
| | 00:29 | different categories.
| | 00:30 | The problem is, because of how Easy
Digital Downloads works, there is no default
| | 00:35 | front page index that we can use.
| | 00:37 | What we have here is the archive page
for all the different products and it just
| | 00:42 | shows every single product, but it says
ARCHIVES on the top and we can't assign
| | 00:47 | this as the front page,
because of how WordPress works.
| | 00:49 | What we have to do instead is place
something else on the front page that can
| | 00:53 | drive your visitors to the right places.
| | 00:56 | By defaults, all WordPress sites use the
blog as the front page, and here you'll
| | 01:01 | see every single blog post.
But that's not what I want.
| | 01:04 | I want a page on the front page that
has some sort of links that takes you
| | 01:09 | directly to the different categories.
| | 01:11 | So, what I am going to do is create a
single page and then put some images in
| | 01:15 | that that link directly to
the different categories.
| | 01:17 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 01:20 | First I'll make the page. So I have
already started here. I made a single page.
| | 01:26 | You see it here at the bottom, it's
called Welcome to Hunger Guides, and in this
| | 01:30 | page I just have a little bit of text.
| | 01:32 | What I want to do now is add in some
images I have created before, and those
| | 01:36 | images will become links
to the different categories.
| | 01:42 | If I go to my Desktop, you'll see here,
under the products folder, I have created
| | 01:47 | three images. I have the cityguides,
livedownloads, which is the live cooking
| | 01:51 | classes, and also recipes.
| | 01:54 | Now I want to add these into my page.
| | 01:57 | So, I'll go here to the top and click
Add Media and then upload the files, so
| | 02:03 | I'll select the files and I'll upload all three.
| | 02:05 | So, I go to Desktop/Products and
find all three files and add them in.
| | 02:12 | And then I'll go and edit the text here,
so I'll say Recipes, from Hunger Guides.
| | 02:20 | Then I'll copy that and paste that in
as alternate text, and then I'll do the
| | 02:23 | same for the two other ones.
| | 02:25 | City Guides, from, and if you're
wondering what this Nashville skyline at
| | 02:38 | twilights text is, that's the
description text that was attached to the original
| | 02:42 | image I edited when I created these graphics.
| | 02:45 | And because I put this all together
in Photoshop, all that information got
| | 02:48 | inherited through, so
that's why you see that show up.
| | 02:52 | Now that I have the three images, I am
going to uncheck two of them, so I only
| | 02:56 | have one. And then I'll go here and
set the Alignment to Center and set the
| | 03:01 | Link To None for now and then set the
Size to Full Size, and the Full Size
| | 03:06 | happens to fit exactly
with the width of the screen.
| | 03:09 | I'll click insert into page and I get
the first image. Then I'll just hit the
| | 03:14 | return key and add media and add the
second image, do same thing, Center, Link To
| | 03:22 | None, insert into page, and I'll scroll
down again, and add the third one, Add
| | 03:29 | Media, City Guides, Center,
Link To None, insert into page.
| | 03:36 | Now I can test this to make sure it
works, so I'll click Publish, and here I
| | 03:40 | published a new page.
| | 03:42 | So, I can go View Page. And now we can
see its looks the way I want. I have the
| | 03:47 | three images at the top
and then I have short text.
| | 03:50 | At the bottom I still have the
Comment, so I am turn that off by going to
| | 03:54 | Screen Options, finding Discussions,
scroll down, and uncheck Allow comments
| | 04:01 | and Allow trackbacks and pingbacks.
Then I am going to collapse Screen Options
| | 04:06 | again, and now I want to make each of these
images into a link pointing to the specific category.
| | 04:11 | So, here is a trick. I need to get the
links to those specific categories, and it
| | 04:16 | can be hard to remember
exactly what those links are.
| | 04:18 | So, I am going to cheat and
go get them from WordPress.
| | 04:22 | So, I'll go to Downloads and find Categories
and then right-click on it and open in a new tab.
| | 04:28 | Here I see a list of my categories.
From here I can hover over the View link for
| | 04:33 | each of them and then right-
click and Copy link address.
| | 04:37 | So that was the link address to City
Guides. Then I can go back here, click on
| | 04:42 | City Guides, go edit the image, and
here in Link URL, I can paste in that link.
| | 04:51 | Click Update and do the
same for the two other ones.
| | 04:54 | So, Live Download Cooking Classes, right-
click on View, Copy link address, click
| | 05:02 | on it, Edit Image, paste in the link,
Update. And the final one: Recipes, View,
| | 05:12 | Copy link address, select the image,
Edit the Image, paste in the link, Update.
| | 05:21 | Now when I click Update and view the
page, you'll see I can click on each of
| | 05:26 | these images, and when I do I jump
directly to the archive for the products
| | 05:31 | under that particular category. And then
I can go into any one of the products,
| | 05:36 | read all about it, and make a purchase.
| | 05:40 | But this still doesn't solve
my problem of the front page.
| | 05:43 | What I have done so far is just add a new
page, but I can't even get to that new page.
| | 05:48 | Now we have to reconfigure the site so
that the new page is displayed in place
| | 05:52 | of the blog on the front page.
| | 05:54 | So right now we have the blog on the front
page, and here you have to make a decision.
| | 05:58 | You can choose whether or not you
want a blog at all or not at this point.
| | 06:02 | You can either just assign the new page
as the front page or you can assign the
| | 06:07 | new page as a front page and then
create a separate page for the blog, so that's
| | 06:11 | what I am going to do.
| | 06:13 | I am going to go in and say New, select Page,
create a new page, and just call it blog.
| | 06:18 | I am not going to put any content here,
because any content I put here will
| | 06:22 | be overridden. Then I'll click Publish.
Then I can go to Settings > Reading
| | 06:30 | and change Front page displays from
Your latest posts to a Static page, and
| | 06:35 | then I'll select my new page as the front
page, so that would be Welcome to Hunger Guides.
| | 06:40 | And then for the Post page--that is,
the blog--I'm going to select Blog.
| | 06:45 | When I click Save changes and I can go
back to the front page, when we go to
| | 06:52 | HOME, we see my new custom front page.
And if I go in and edit my menus--
| | 06:57 | so I'll go to Toolbar and Menus-I can
add a link to blog. It sits right here.
| | 07:03 | Add to Menu, pull it up
under the Store, Save Menu.
| | 07:10 | And when I jump back again to the front page
and select Blog, I go directly to the blog.
| | 07:14 | Of course this is just the very
surface of what's possible here. You can make
| | 07:19 | very advanced and very attractive
front pages. You just have to remember that
| | 07:23 | with Easy Digital Downloads you can't
make a front page that has the full index
| | 07:28 | unless you really know what you're doing.
| | 07:29 | So, driving people to specific areas or
even linking to specific products using
| | 07:34 | this same technique will make it a lot
easier for people to find the products
| | 07:39 | that you want them to find.
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| Using the sidebar| 00:00 | To make navigation as easy as possible
and also ensure that your customers sees
| | 00:05 | what's going on as they are shopping,
| | 00:07 | I recommend customizing your sidebar
to provide a search box as well as a
| | 00:11 | shopping cart and a list of
your different categories.
| | 00:15 | With WordPress and Easy Digital
Downloads these are simple drag-and-drop
| | 00:19 | behaviors making the process as easy as, well,
dragging and dropping stuff into the sidebar.
| | 00:24 | When you install WordPress from
scratch you get a sidebar with some standard
| | 00:28 | features: you have the Search box at
the top, you have RECENT POST, RECENT
| | 00:32 | COMMENT, ARCHIVES and so on.
| | 00:34 | What I want do is replace all of these
standard widgets with the custom widgets
| | 00:39 | that relate to the products we're selling.
| | 00:41 | I can do that by going to my Toolbar
and selecting Widgets, or by going to the
| | 00:46 | Dashboard and then
selecting Appearance and Widgets.
| | 00:49 | Here you see the Main Sidebar is
already stocked with a set of default
| | 00:53 | widgets. These are the ones you saw on the page.
| | 00:56 | So, first I am going to get rid
of all of them except for Search.
| | 01:00 | So, I'll pull the rest of them out, so
that we have a clean sidebar, and then
| | 01:05 | we're going to add in some custom
widgets that were added automatically by
| | 01:09 | Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 01:11 | You see them here. It's called
Downloads Carts, Downloads Categories,
| | 01:16 | and Purchase History.
| | 01:17 | I am going to add the cart directly
under Search, and then I am also going add
| | 01:21 | the Downloads Categories/Tags, and I'll
set it Categories. Without doing any more
| | 01:27 | customization, let's take a
look at what that looks like.
| | 01:29 | So, I'll open it in a separate
window, and you can see it now I have the
| | 01:34 | Search box, I have the cart, and it's
says Your cart is empty, and I also have
| | 01:39 | the list of categories.
| | 01:41 | But of course it's hard to understand
what this is, because it doesn't have any
| | 01:44 | titles, so I'll go back and I'll set
the Title of the Download Cart to simply
| | 01:48 | Cart. And I'll also click Show Quantity
here so that we can see the quantity of
| | 01:53 | what we're buying, click Save to
save the change, I'll set the Download
| | 01:57 | Categories Title to Categories, and click Save.
| | 02:04 | Now when I reload the front page,
you'll see we have a usable sidebar that
| | 02:08 | actually gives people
information about what's going on.
| | 02:11 | If you want to, you can swap the
position of the categories on the cart simply
| | 02:15 | by going in and dragging the
Categories list above the cart. Or you can other
| | 02:20 | types of widgets to make
the sidebar more attractive.
| | 02:23 | Just remember there is such a thing as
sidebar overload, so don't put too much
| | 02:28 | content in the sidebar or it
becomes very annoying to look at.
| | 02:32 | Simple enhancements like placing the
shopping cart and a search box in the
| | 02:35 | sidebar will make for a better user
experience for your customers, and a better
| | 02:40 | user experience means your customers
will feel more comfortable using your store
| | 02:44 | and are more likely to buy your products.
| | 02:47 | It's a small investment
for a potentially large reward.
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|
|
6. Managing SalesTesting the customer experience| 00:00 | Now that you've added Easy Digital
Downloads to your site, configured it, added
| | 00:05 | products, and configured the overall
site to work as an ecommerce site,
| | 00:09 | it's time to test it as if you were a customer.
| | 00:12 | That way you'll be able to identify
any pain points, or things that don't work
| | 00:16 | right, and you'll be able to make sure
that people who visit the site can buy the
| | 00:20 | products they actually want to purchase.
| | 00:23 | Before we do that though, let's take a
quick look at the Settings again, to make
| | 00:26 | sure that everything is right.
| | 00:27 | I'll go back to my Dashboard
and go to Downloads > Settings.
| | 00:33 | And from here I'm going to make sure
that Test mode is currently unchecked so
| | 00:37 | that I can ask the buy products, and
I'm going to go into Payment Gateways and
| | 00:41 | check what payment gateways
I currently have available.
| | 00:44 | I have PayPal, TestPayment, and Stripe
all activated, which means I can test
| | 00:49 | for any one one of them.
| | 00:50 | Now if you're going to test for PayPal,
| | 00:52 | I'll reiterate that you need to use a
PayPal sandbox account and not your real account;
| | 00:57 | otherwise, you'll have to actually pay
money to make sure that this test works.
| | 01:02 | For Stripe, you need to fill in all
the information, in particular the Test
| | 01:06 | Secret Key and the Test Publishable
Key, and make sure that Stripe is set to
| | 01:11 | Test mode to make this work.
| | 01:13 | Now I know everything is set correctly,
I can open the site in an incognito
| | 01:17 | window and that way I can test
a site without being logged in.
| | 01:22 | So I'll test it just like
someone who just landed on the site.
| | 01:25 | Now let's say I want to buy
that city guide we just created.
| | 01:28 | I'll click on City Guides, and here I
find the city guide I want, and when I go
| | 01:34 | in I can look at the picture, I can read
the text, I can open the gallery if I want to.
| | 01:40 | And if I'm satisfied that this is what
I want to buy, I'll scroll to the bottom
| | 01:44 | and click $10.00-Purchase.
| | 01:47 | After the product is added to the cart,
I get a prompt that I can go to the
| | 01:51 | cart that goes away after a little
while, and if I scroll up, I can see that in
| | 01:55 | my sidebar I have a cart with one item--
its the Boston City Guide for $10.00--and
| | 02:00 | I can click remove if I
want to or go to Checkout.
| | 02:03 | That way I can continue surfing the
site and look at other products, and then I
| | 02:07 | can add them to the cart as well, and
I'll see the list here in the sidebar and
| | 02:12 | I can go to the checkout at anytime.
| | 02:14 | I'm going to go to the Checkout, and
then again I can see the product I
| | 02:18 | purchased, and if I wanted to, I can remove it.
| | 02:20 | From here, I need to select a payment method.
| | 02:23 | As you can see, I still have PayPal,
Test Payment, and Credit Card as options
| | 02:27 | and depending on which one I choose, I'll get
different information that I need to fill out.
| | 02:32 | For all three, I need to either log in
or create an account, because I set the
| | 02:37 | site up so that you have to be logged
in to buy anything. And for PayPal I need
| | 02:41 | to provide an email address,
a first name, and a last name.
| | 02:45 | If is switch to Credit Card instead,
I'll be doing payments through Stripe, and
| | 02:49 | here you see, in addition to the
information that was collected by PayPal, I also
| | 02:53 | have to put in my full credit card information.
| | 02:56 | And this is why you need an SSL certificate if
you're going to use Stripe as a payment method.
| | 03:02 | Because if you don't have an SSL
certificate and you don't have encrypted
| | 03:06 | information between the visitor's
browser and your server, anyone can snoop in
| | 03:11 | on the communication and grab
the credit card information.
| | 03:15 | So like I said in the WordPress Ecommerce:
| | 03:17 | Core Concepts course, if you are going
to set up an ecommerce store, you need
| | 03:22 | to have an SSL certificate for the
store, and that is especially important if
| | 03:26 | you are using Stripe.
| | 03:27 | I am going to test the gateway using
my Test Payment option instead, so now I
| | 03:32 | can put in information. I'll start by
creating an account. I'll say owen. I'll set
| | 03:37 | a password. Then I'll set the email
address, and I'll put in my first and last
| | 03:47 | name, and then I have to look at
the terms and agree to the terms.
| | 03:53 | Now you notice here, when I click
on Show Terms, it opens the Terms &
| | 03:57 | Conditions. And you'll remember
from earlier in the course, instead of
| | 04:01 | writing out the full Terms & Conditions, I
just put in a short sentence with a link to it.
| | 04:06 | This is so that people can read the
full Terms & Conditions without having to
| | 04:10 | scroll up and down on this particular
screen, because as you can imagine, if
| | 04:14 | I put all that text on this page, it
would scroll far down before you got to
| | 04:18 | the purchase button.
| | 04:19 | Now that I have all the information
input, I can click the Purchase button.
| | 04:24 | But as you can see, nothing's happening.
That means something is not working right, so
| | 04:29 | now I need to troubleshoot, and this
is precisely why you want to try this
| | 04:33 | experience as a customer.
| | 04:35 | So I'll go back to my site, and I can
remember that in the Settings here, under
| | 04:40 | Miscellaneous, it said at the very top,
Disable Ajax, check this to disable Ajax
| | 04:45 | for the shopping cart.
| | 04:46 | So I'm going to try to Disable Ajax for
the shopping cart and see if that will
| | 04:50 | make any difference.
| | 04:51 | I'll go down and save the changes, go
back to my test page, and reload it, and
| | 05:00 | then I'll select the payment
method again, so I'll set Test Payment.
| | 05:04 | And now I have to click Next, because we
no longer have that Ajax function that
| | 05:08 | automatically loads things up for us.
| | 05:11 | Here I can create the account, so
I'll put in the same information,
| | 05:14 | same very weak password, and I will check
Agree to Terms & Conditions and click Purchase.
| | 05:27 | As you can see, when I disable the Ajax,
the purchase was completed, and now we
| | 05:32 | have a purchase confirmation that shows
us what payment number it was, what the
| | 05:36 | current date is, how much I paid for it,
| | 05:39 | I also have a Payment Key, and down
here I can download the product, so if I
| | 05:44 | click on it, I can download it onto my computer.
| | 05:47 | In addition I got an email sent to me
with all this information so that I
| | 05:50 | can come back here later and go and
look at the purchase confirmation or
| | 05:55 | purchase history, or I can come back
and download the product again, through
| | 05:58 | the link that's in my email.
| | 06:00 | As you can see, by testing the user
experience of the actual shop, you'll be able
| | 06:05 | to do some troubleshooting if it turns
out that things are not working properly.
| | 06:09 | When you do this on an external server,
it is extremely important that you try
| | 06:14 | out every single permutation, and that
you try out every single situation you
| | 06:18 | can think a customer will get in and see
what happens when you do does different things.
| | 06:22 | If you're going to use a payment
gateway, it's also important that you actually
| | 06:26 | make a real payment.
| | 06:27 | So run through the payment experiments
using the Test Gateway first, and then
| | 06:32 | when you think it works, switch to the
real gateway and actually make a payment
| | 06:36 | to see that everything works properly.
| | 06:38 | That way you'll be sure that when
customers come to your site they'll be able
| | 06:41 | to actually purchase your
products and pay you for them.
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| Receiving and managing orders| 00:00 | Once people start buying products
from your store, it's your job to receive
| | 00:04 | and manage the orders and provide your
customers with the products they have paid for.
| | 00:08 | If you're selling digital downloads
only, this is largely managed by Easy
| | 00:12 | Digital Downloads, but in some cases
you still need to interact with the orders
| | 00:17 | to make everything work properly.
| | 00:18 | In the previous movie, we made a
purchase of this Boston City Guide, and now we
| | 00:22 | can log in and take a look at what
happens when people make a purchase.
| | 00:26 | So I'll go back to the Dashboard, and
here I'm logged in as myself. And here on
| | 00:32 | the Dashboard I'll show you something cool.
| | 00:34 | By default, you have all these
standard WordPress boxes here.
| | 00:36 | You have the Right Now panel,
the QuickPress, and so on.
| | 00:40 | But if you scroll all the way to the
bottom, you'll see there's a new panel that's
| | 00:44 | called Easy Digital Downloads
Sales Summary, and here you have lots of
| | 00:48 | information about what's
been happening on the site.
| | 00:51 | You can either grab this and just drag
it up to the top if you want, or, if you
| | 00:57 | want to get rid of these
other things at the same time,
| | 00:59 | you can go to Screen Options and simply
uncheck the ones you don't want to see.
| | 01:05 | So if I uncheck all of them, you'll see
all we're left with is this summary.
| | 01:14 | This page is customizable, and you can
change it any time, but what matters for
| | 01:18 | right now is that we can see
a full summary of our shop.
| | 01:21 | We can see how much money we've earned,
we can see how many sales we've made, and
| | 01:25 | we can see Recent Purchases.
| | 01:26 | In addition to seeing them here,
you can also see the purchases by going to
| | 01:30 | Downloads and selecting Payment History.
| | 01:34 | Here you see all the payments
that have happened and you get more
| | 01:37 | information about each payment.
| | 01:39 | If you click on View Order Details,
you'll actually get the full order details
| | 01:43 | for this particular payment.
| | 01:45 | And if you look here, you'll see that
we have Completed payments, Pending
| | 01:50 | payments, Refunded payments,
Revoked payments, and Failed payments.
| | 01:54 | That means if you get an order and
something is wrong--for example down here we
| | 01:59 | have an order that's pending--you can
go in and click Edits and then open that
| | 02:04 | order, and from here you can change the
Status. You'll see that in this case the
| | 02:09 | download that was purchased is Breads
and Spreads Class, but for some reason
| | 02:13 | there are no payment notes, which
means I have to check whether or not I
| | 02:17 | actually got paid for this.
| | 02:18 | If I did, I can change it to
Complete or Refunded or Failed or Revoked,
| | 02:23 | depending on the status.
| | 02:25 | And if I change it to Complete, I get
this new box where it Send Purchase
| | 02:29 | Receipts where I can check the box
and send the Purchase Receipts including
| | 02:33 | all download links.
| | 02:35 | That means it's no longer pending and
the person who made this purchase will now
| | 02:39 | get an email in the mail saying, here's
the download link where they can download
| | 02:43 | the product they purchased.
| | 02:44 | I'll update the payment. It's set to
Complete, and now when I go back to Payment
| | 02:50 | History, you'll see we have
9 Completed and 1 pending.
| | 02:52 | If you were contacted by a customer who
for whatever reason didn't receive the
| | 02:57 | Purchase Receipt with the link to the
product--that could be because it got
| | 03:01 | caught by a spam filter or because
they use the wrong email address--
| | 03:04 | you can also click Recent Purchase
Receipt right here under the name of the
| | 03:09 | person who bought the product.
| | 03:11 | Finally, if you go to View Order Details,
you see that you can jump directly to
| | 03:16 | the products that have been
purchased for one order. And if you go to that
| | 03:19 | product and scroll down to the bottom,
you'll see here we have a Purchase Log and
| | 03:24 | also a File Download Log for each product.
| | 03:27 | So we can see who bought the products,
which Purchase ID that purchase has, and
| | 03:32 | we can see who downloaded it.
| | 03:34 | So for instance, here we see that four
people bought the product, but only two
| | 03:38 | people downloaded it, which means something
probably went wrong here and we need to follow up.
| | 03:43 | As we can see, once you get orders in
through Easy Digital Downloads, you have
| | 03:47 | all the information about the order and
the person ordering your product right
| | 03:51 | at your fingertips.
| | 03:53 | In most instances, all you have to do is
make sure you got the payment. But when
| | 03:57 | something goes wrong it's easy to find
the order and take the necessary action
| | 04:01 | to resolve the issue.
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| Managing reports| 00:00 | Once your store is up and running and
you're making sales, it's important that
| | 00:04 | you start looking at your statistics to
ensure that things are running smoothly
| | 00:08 | and that you are meeting the
demands of your prospective customers.
| | 00:11 | To give you as much information as
possible about your sales, Easy Digital
| | 00:15 | Downloads comes stocked with
advanced reporting tools. You'll find the
| | 00:19 | reporting tools by going to Downloads
> Reports, and here you'll get several
| | 00:25 | different types of reports.
| | 00:26 | Of course, right now it looks kind of
weird because I have only made a couple of
| | 00:30 | sales inside my tests lab, but once you
start making sales, you'll see nice graphs
| | 00:34 | here, both of sales and of earnings.
| | 00:38 | You can change this from today to week,
and month, and quarter, and year, or
| | 00:42 | make custom queries of specific spans of time.
| | 00:46 | But it doesn't just limit itself to earnings.
| | 00:48 | If you use this dropdown here, you can
see you get downloads reports that you
| | 00:52 | can see, and then you see all your
products, You can also get reports for
| | 00:57 | customers. so you can see which
customers buy what and how much they buy, and you
| | 01:02 | can see a report for taxes.
| | 01:05 | The taxes report can be specifically
useful when you have to pay taxes once
| | 01:09 | a year, and here you can get a complete
report from each year you've been operational.
| | 01:13 | Next to Reports, you have Export.
| | 01:16 | From here, you can export all the
different information that's stored inside
| | 01:20 | here, either as a PDF or as a CSV file, so you
can import them directly into a spreadsheet.
| | 01:26 | You also have Logs here, where you can see
exactly what's been going on on your site.
| | 01:31 | These logs have mainly to do with file
downloads, so you can see who downloaded
| | 01:35 | what and when that happened.
| | 01:36 | So if someone comes to you and says hey,
I downloaded a file but then I didn't
| | 01:41 | get it, or whatever, you can actually
check whether or not they did download it,
| | 01:45 | where they downloaded it from, and you can also
see if people are trying to cheat the system.
| | 01:49 | So maybe someone is downloading the
same file from two different locations
| | 01:52 | within a very short time span.
You'll be able to catch that here.
| | 01:56 | You can also see logs for sales, and
you can see logs for payment errors, and
| | 02:03 | the payment error one is probably
really important if something were to go
| | 02:07 | wrong, like you see here. I triggered
two Stripe errors on purpose, so we can
| | 02:12 | see a log message here that says
there's something wrong. Unfortunately, in this
| | 02:15 | case, the log message says nothing,
but you will get the payment error logs
| | 02:20 | here if something is going wrong, and then you
can troubleshoot based on those error messages.
| | 02:25 | Though the reports pages may not look
like much at first, once you start getting
| | 02:30 | customers, you'll quickly get a clear
picture of how your customers and potential
| | 02:35 | customers behave on your site.
| | 02:37 | You can add to this by adding Google
Analytics or another analytics engine on to
| | 02:41 | your site to get further
statistics about how people are operating.
| | 02:45 | Based on the information you get out of
the analytics and out of the reports, you
| | 02:49 | can make changes to your products to
make them more appealing and drive your
| | 02:53 | customers to buy more.
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| Creating discount codes| 00:00 | Providing potential customers with
incentives is a great way of converting them
| | 00:04 | from potential to actual customers.
| | 00:07 | One such incentive is to
give out discount codes.
| | 00:11 | Easy Digital Downloads makes it easy
to create new and advanced discounts, and
| | 00:15 | also to manage existing discounts.
| | 00:18 | To create new or manage discount codes,
you simply go to Downloads and Discount
| | 00:23 | Codes, and here you'll see a list of the
existing discount codes, if you have any,
| | 00:27 | and you'll also be given the
ability to create new ones.
| | 00:30 | Let's say I want to make a new
discount here, and I want to call it Spring 2013
| | 00:37 | Discount. And the code should really be
something complicated that people can't
| | 00:42 | remember, so I'll put MOR10. Then I need to
choose what type of discount this is going to be.
| | 00:49 | Is it going to be a
percentage discount or a flat amount?
| | 00:52 | If I set it to Percentage or Flat amount
I still have to enter the actual amounts.
| | 00:56 | So if you set 10 here and it's a
percentage, it's 10%, but if I set it and it's
| | 01:01 | flat amount, then it becomes $10. Then I
can decide what start date to start the
| | 01:06 | discount on. Since this is Spring 2013,
it should really start on February 1 and
| | 01:12 | then it should end on let's say
April 1st. Then I can also set a minimum
| | 01:18 | amount, which means people have to
buy more than a certain amount of money
| | 01:22 | before the discount kicks in.
| | 01:25 | If you don't set anything here, it
will be no minimum and you if you set
| | 01:29 | something, it'll of course kick in automatically.
| | 01:30 | And finally, I can set the max
number of uses for a discount code. This is
| | 01:35 | probably a good idea, so you don't get lots of
people buying your product at a very low price.
| | 01:41 | So you can set a max use to say 10 or
50 or whatever you think is reasonable.
| | 01:45 | When you're done configuring it, you
simply click Add Discount Code and you'll
| | 01:49 | see the discount code appear here.
You'll see the name, the code, the amount,
| | 01:54 | the number of uses, and then
also the rest of the information.
| | 01:59 | If you want to edit the discount code,
you can simply click Edit and then you can
| | 02:02 | go back and edit any of the information
you have here. And at the very bottom you
| | 02:07 | can set the Status from Active to
Inactive if you want to disable it.
| | 02:11 | That way you don't have to delete
your discount codes; you can just take them
| | 02:15 | Inactive, so if you want to use them
again later, you can just go back and
| | 02:18 | activate them and maybe change
elements like the Start date or the Max Uses.
| | 02:23 | By making targeted discount codes and
restricting them, either by volume or
| | 02:27 | time, you can incentivize potential
customers to buy certain products right now
| | 02:32 | and get past the "hmm,
| | 02:33 | maybe I should wait" problem many
customers have when buying stuff on line.
| | 02:38 | Using discount codes the right way can
be a gold mine for your ecommerce site.
| | 02:43 | One smart way of using them is to
offer discounts to early adopters to
| | 02:47 | incentivize large-volume sales
when you launch a new product.
| | 02:50 | But use them too much and you end up
becoming a discount store, and that's
| | 02:54 | never a good thing.
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|
|
ConclusionWhere to go from here| 00:00 | If you've been following along from the
beginning, you should now have a fully
| | 00:03 | functional ecommerce site using Easy
Digital Downloads that lets you sell
| | 00:08 | digital downloads and digital services online.
| | 00:11 | Throughout the course, I've been using
the 2012 theme, but you can use any theme
| | 00:15 | to build a site around Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 00:18 | If you want to get a theme that's
customize specifically to work with Easy
| | 00:22 | Digital Downloads, you can do not too.
| | 00:24 | If you go to the Easy Digital Downloads
website, you can go to Extend and Themes,
| | 00:30 | and here you'll find themes that are
customized specifically for this plugin.
| | 00:33 | On the same website you can also find
a lot of extensions that will add extra
| | 00:38 | features to your Ecommerce site.
| | 00:41 | If you're going to buy extension though,
just keep in mind you shouldn't buy
| | 00:44 | too much right away.
| | 00:46 | Try to really think about what you need
first and then figure out what is the
| | 00:49 | best way of solving that problem.
| | 00:51 | It's quite possible that you might be
able to find a free solution that will
| | 00:54 | work just as well as an extension, but
in some cases you need an extension to
| | 00:58 | make it work properly.
| | 01:00 | The Easy Digital Downloads site also has
extensive documentation if you have any
| | 01:04 | issues with a plugin, and you can
also get support for the plugin itself.
| | 01:09 | If you want to know more about
how to use WordPress, you can go
| | 01:13 | check out WordPress Essential
Training right here in the lynda.com
| | 01:16 | online training library.
| | 01:18 | This is a comprehensive course that
goes through pretty much everything there
| | 01:21 | is to know about WordPress, and a
lot of what I teach in that course has
| | 01:25 | relevance to this course,
| | 01:27 | things like how to
handle social media and so on.
| | 01:29 | If you want to go further and you want
to enhance your website, you can also go
| | 01:33 | check out WordPress 3: Building Child Themes.
| | 01:36 | This shows you how you can
extend on an existing theme to add new
| | 01:40 | functionality to it.
| | 01:41 | For example, you can add new
functionality to 2012 to make it look more like
| | 01:46 | the way you want. Or if you want to dive
deep into theme development you can go
| | 01:50 | check out WordPress:
Building Responsive Themes.
| | 01:54 | This course helps you build out a fully
responsive theme that will work well on
| | 01:58 | cell phones, as well as full computer monitors.
| | 02:01 | One of the many powers of WordPress is
its ability to change appearance simply
| | 02:05 | by switching out the theme, and by
selecting the right theme and customizing it,
| | 02:09 | you can make your online store into a
truly unique and personalized experience.
| | 02:13 | Now you know the basics of how to set
up an ecommerce site using WordPress and
| | 02:18 | Easy Digital Downloads.
| | 02:19 | So all that's left to say is,
go out and sell your products.
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