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Digital Downloads

Digital downloads, added in Miva Merchant 9.0005, make it easier for you to sell products that your customers can download from your store, such as PDFs, images, music, video files, etc. Digital products are almost the same as any other product; they can have product images, prices, descriptions, even Variants. The main differences between a digital product and a product like a hat or t-shirt are:

To Use Digital Downloads

The general process of using digital downloads is:

  1. Install the Digital Downloads module. Technically, you only need to install this module if you are going to import or export your digital product data. See To Install the Digital Downloads Module.

  2. Set up a CDN (optional). See:

    To Set Up a CDN

    To Connect Your Miva Merchant Store to Your CDN

    When you start using Digital Downloads, you can store your digital content in two places:

    2.1. You can store your digital products on a cloud server called a Content Delivery Network. As of 01/31/16, the only CDN that Miva Merchant supports is Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). To use S3 you have to sign up for it with Amazon first, and then connect to your CDN from the admin interface.

    2.2. You can store your digital products on your Miva Merchant server. Miva Merchant calls this "local" storage, and you can use it without any special setup.

  3. Configure your store settings for Digital Downloads.

    4. See "To Set Global Defaults for Your Store's Digital Downloads".

  4. Create your digital products.

    See "To Add Digital Products One at a Time".

  5. Disable off-line payment methods (optional, but recommended).

    See "To Disable Off-Line Payment Methods for Digital Products".

  6. Set up free shipping (optional).

    See "To Create Free Shipping for a Standalone Gift Certificate" for an example.

See also: Customer Experience - Buying a Digital Product.

To Install the Digital Downloads Module

Basic support for digital products is installed in your 9.0005 store by default. You only need to install this module if you want to import and export your digital product data.

To Set Up a CDN

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a cloud server where you can store your digital content. As of 01/31/16, the only CDN that Miva Merchant supports is Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). To use Amazon S3, you need an Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) account. Please see: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/gsg/GetStartedWithS3.html

for an overview of using Amazon S3.

If you don't want to use a CDN, you can store your digital content on your Miva Merchant server. You can add digital products to your store server one at a time, or in a bulk import.

You can also use a CDN and your store server. Some of your digital products can go on your CDN and you can put others on your Miva Merchant store server. However, when you create digital products in your Miva Merchant store, you have to tell the system where the product is located.

To Connect Your Miva Merchant Store to Your CDN

You only need to follow these steps if you have set up a CDN.

  1. Go to Menu> Store Settings > Digital Downloads CDNs tab.
  2. Click Add CDN Add.

    3. Add Digital Download

    Name: This is a name for the link to your CDN. The name is only displayed in the admin interface.
    CDN Select the CDN provider that you are using.
    Access Key: Secret Key: You will get an access key and secret key when you create your Amazon S3 CDN.
  3. When you are finished entering information in the Add Digital Download CDN dialog box, click Add.

Set Global Defaults for Your Store's Digital Downloads

  1. Go to Menu> Store Settings > Digital Downloads Settings tab

  2. Set the Max Downloads: This field controls the number of times a digital product can be downloaded. Note that this setting can over-ridden at the product level (edit product > Digital Downloads Settings tab).

    When your customer buys a digital product, they will receive a special email that has a download link. If you set Max Downloads to 1, the customer can only download the product one time.

  3. Set the Link Expiration: Miva Merchant has an internal timer that determines how long the download link can be used. For example, if you set the Link Expiration to 5, the customer must download the product within 5 days of completing checkout.
  4. When you are finished making changes, click Update.

    5. Warning

    		If a download URL becomes inactive, for any reason, you can always manually create a new download URL for your customer and mail the URL to them. See To Manually Create a Download URL.

To See What Digital Products Have Been Downloaded

To see all downloads for a single product:

To Manually Create a Download URL

If a customer is having trouble downloading a product, or a download link has become invalid for some reason, you can manually create a download link and email it to the customer.

  1. Go to Menu> Catalog > Products tab > edit product > Digital Downloads tab.
  2. Click Add Digital Download Add.

    Digital Download Link

  3. In the Add Digital Download Link dialog box, use your product settings for Max Downloads and Link Expiration or enter new values, then click Add.

    4. Downloads Link

  4. In the Digital Downloads tab, you'll see that the system has created a new download link. Doubleclick on the new link to open the Edit Digital Download Link dialog box.

    Digital Download Link

  5. In the Edit Digital Download Link dialog box, copy the URL and email it to your customer. The customer can enter the URL in their browser and download the product.

To Add Digital Products One at a Time

  1. Go to Menu> Catalog > Products tab. In the Products tab click Add Product Add.

    2. Digital Products

  2. We'll fill out the fields in the Add Product > Product tab and click +Add.
  3. Select the edit product > Digital Download Settings tab.

    4. Digital Download

    3.1. In the Digital Download Settings tab, select the Settings section.

    Generate a Digital Download Code When This Product is Purchased You must check this option to support Digital Downloads. If you don't check this box, the system will not generate download URLs for your digital products.
    Max Downloads:

    The number of times the customer is allowed to download their purchase.

    You can accept the global setting for this option (see To Set Global Defaults for Your Store's Digital Downloads) or over-ride the global setting for this product.
    Link Expiration:

    The number of days (starting from completion of checkout) that the download link will remain valid.

    You can accept the global setting for this option or over-ride the global setting for this product.
    Delivery Method:
    • Local: Choose this option if you are storing the digital file for this product on your Miva Merchant server.
    • If you have created a link between your Miva Merchant store and a CDN, the name of that link will appear in the Delivery Method list box. See To Connect Your Miva Merchant Store to Your CDN.

      Select the name of your CDN link if you are going to store the digital file for this product on your CDN.

    3.2. If you are storing the digital file for this product on your Miva Merchant server, select the Local File section.

    Downloaded File Name:

    Technically, you don't need to enter anything in this field, although you can edit this field after you upload your digital product.

    This field is part of a Miva Merchant process that gives your digital products a little extra security.

    When you upload a digital product to your store server (see Upload, below), Miva assigns the digital file a random alphanumeric string. For example, if you are going to sell music in your store, the digital file that you upload might be "polka_polka.mp3". The system automatically puts the real file name in the Downloaded File Name field, but also assigns that file the string "3353576bc6d4e265f90ee9735d1c3edb".

    Local File Settings

    The customer will never see the real filename until they complete the download process. If someone hacked into your store server, they would only see the alphanumeric string instead of the real filenames.

    The Invoice screen (INVC) and the Order Confirmation email do not show the real filename. The special email that the customer gets has a download link that looks something like this:

    http://sample.mivamerchant.com/mm5/download.mvc?Store_C ode=sample_store&DigitalDownload=3353576bc6d4e265f90ee9 735d1c3edb

    After the customer completes the download process, the file that appears on their computer will be whatever is in the Downloaded File Name field.
    Local File Path: Upload button:

    To upload a digital file to your store server, click the Upload button. Click the Browse button to find the file on your local machine, then click Open.

    • The system will copy the file to your store server, and show you the path to the file in the Local File Path field.
    • The real name of the file will be automatically entered in the Downloaded File Name field.
    • For security, the system will assign a random alphanumeric string to the filename, which is what the customer will see during checkout and the download process.

    3.3. If you are storing the digital file for this product on your CDN, select the Amazon CDN section.

    Amazon CDN

    3.3.1. You should already have uploaded your content to your Amazon S3 account. See: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/gsg/GetStartedWithS3.html

    Create Bucket

    3.3.2. In the admin interface, enter the Bucket Name where you put your digital content. A Bucket is an Amazon storage location similar to a folder.

    Upload Bucket

    3.3.3. In the admin interface, enter the File Path. The file path is the file name of the digital content. Amazon calls this the "object name". In our example, our File Path would be "polka_polka.mp3".

    3.3.4. In the admin interface, enter the Region. Amazon AWS lets you use resources in different geo-physical regions. You can see the region where your Bucket was created by looking at the Bucket Properties in your AWS account.

    But see also: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html

  4. When you have finished making changes in the Digital Download Settings tab, click Update.

To Disable Off-Line Payment Methods for Digital Products

This is really an example of how to restrict payment methods at the product level with the fields in: edit product > Product tab > Payment Rules section.

We're going to use the fields in the Payment Rules section to prevent customers from using an off-line payment method when they buy a digital product. However, you could follow the same steps to restrict payment methods for any of your products.

In this example, we've already created a digital product: an mp3 file

  1. Go to Menu> Catalog > Products tab > edit product > Product tab > Payment Rules section.

    2. Edit Product

    1.1. Check the Limit Payment Methods checkbox.

    1.2. Under Permitted Payment Methods, we will select only those payment methods that are not off-line. Checks, COD, and credit card with simple validation are examples of off-line payments.

    When our customer purchases this item and goes through checkout, they will only see the payment methods that we have permitted. For our song mp3, we are only going to allow customers to pay with PayPal.

  2. When you have finished making changes, click Update.

    3. If you need to disable payment methods for a large number of digital products, you could use the export/import process. When you use Export Products to Flat File, make sure that you select the Payment Rules Fields.

    See also To Use "Exclude This Method Unless Permitted by Products".

Customer Experience - Buying a Digital Product

In our example, we've already uploaded an mp3 file to our store as a digital product, and created a Price Group to allow free shipping. (See To Create Free Shipping for a Standalone Gift Certificate for an example.)

  1. The customer opens a browser, navigates to our store and signs into their account.
  2. The customer adds the song file to their basket and starts checkout. In our example, this customer is only purchasing the song file.

    3. Buying Digital Product

  3. In the Shipping/Payment Selection Screen (OSEL):

    • The Price Group that we created for free shipping shows up in the Ship Via list box.

    • For better security, we removed off-line payment methods for our digital products. In our example, the customer can only select Visa from the Pay With list box.

      Off-line Payment

  4. In the Invoice Screen (INVC):
    • The customer can see that they aren't being charged for shipping.
    • The customer sees the name of the song, which we put in the product name field (song - Polka Polka!). But instead of seeing the real filename that they are downloading, for example, "polka_polka.mp3", they see: digitaldownload: 50c76f1c82dc4

      This is a security measure. The customer never sees the real filename until they've completed the download process. See Downloaded File Name for more details.

      The customer will usually receive a copy of the invoice in the Order Confirmation email.

      Download File Name

  5. The customer immediately receives a special email that contains a download link.

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