Fulfilling online orders

When your customers buy digital goods online, you can deliver these directly to their computer or device.  Examples of digital products include:

• software
• films
• music
• games
• e-books
• reports
• training materials

 There are different ways you could deliver digital goods. 

Email

You can deliver smaller files such as directly to the customer via email. The customer receives their book after they purchase the product from your e-commerce site. The advantage of this method is that it is very simple to set up. However, it is time consuming to manually send each product via email. The file can easily be shared with others.

Autoresponse emails 

Once a customer has confirmed their purchase you can connect the order form to an autoresponder. This will send them an automatic email. The email will contain an attachment or a link which they can click to download the digital product.

Download page

It is possible to set up a simple online payment system on your own. After processing the payment, your website automatically directs the customer to a download page. They can access the file from this page. 

Shopping-cart software

Several e-commerce providers offer software that delivers downloadable product files and protects against unauthorised digital product downloads. This type of software can be integrated with your shopping cart system.  After payment is processed, the system will give the customer secure access to download the file.

Protecting your assets

You will also need to think about how to protect the copyright of your data and prevent illegal sharing or reuse of your digital products. Read more about digital rights management.

There is a risk that the product could be copied and shared by the customer. This issue is addressed by digital rights management software.