I am intending on opening a software company with only 1 product as of now. 2 at the very max in the future. The software will be downloadable as there will be no shipping involved.

The user can log on the site, and download the software after they have purchased it. They will also receive an activation # for the software. I'm not sure how I will go about this. The user can also be referred to the site through an ad,link, or referreral code in which the referrer will make like a few bucks after the person they referred has purchased it.

What's the best way to tackle this in regards to these aspects?
1) Do I need a members login area before they make the purchase? Or should I make where they just enter their billing information and press submit and proceed to the download. Of course, I will need a login area for people to get referral codes and check the amount they have collected as a result of referral... so do you think I should make a members login for everyone where it can serve like a portal for them? I want this process to be as painless as possible for people when it comes to ordering... the most efficient and robust way. On the same token, I don't want users to download the software/activation code and then complain they never received it. What do I do then? I will then have to send them another activation code which they can sell to their friend. How do I go about circumventing this?

2) What payment processing/gateway do you recommend? Paypal or authorize.net or echeck? There is that referral service that might get in the way... not sure how to go about this. Maybe I should have authorize.net for the software purchases and use paypal to payout to referrers? Or all together drop the referral idea.

3) Any other ideas on how to go about this endeavor would be much appreciated to make it efficient and profitable and seamless as possible.

Thanks

For number 1, I would suggest purchasing idevaffiliate (www.idevdirect.com) and then integrating it into a custom or commercial billing/licensing/members area system. Using Idevaffiliate will be easier than writing your own and is a nice, fairly cheap ($99), featured system.

In terms of preventing fraud, I suggest you look into a licensing system - either something you develop for your own needs or purchase an existing commercial licensing system if you've no real interest in making your own. You'd basically need a script on your server with a database of license keys, and then code in your script to check if the key is valid. That way you know the user has the key, and if they complain they didn't get it, you can simply remove the key from the database and prevent them using it/selling it along.

As you're just starting out, you should be fine with just Paypal (which supports echeck's) and it's also a fairly universal payment processor that your referrals/affiliates will likely have, or can easily get. Idevaffiliate also integrates with Paypal to automate the paying out to users. You can then get a merchant account such as Authorize.net later when your business has grown to accept credit card directly.

Best of luck with your product :)

www.phpaudit.com is a VERY good system to manage the licensing and distribution/sales for your software.

Highly recommended.

Thanks, I'll take a look at phpaudit further indepth. At a brisk glance, it looks good. Few questions though, will it work with Idevaffiliate (to handle affiliates) like how Vibralogix dot com does? Will it allow me to setup the shopping cart?

In a nutshell, I need some thing that will allow end users to enter their billing information, and be able to download SOFTWARE (we only have 1 software) only after placing order while being able to manage licenses as well as paying out affiliates?

How would I go about putting this puzzle together... in other words, what are the components I will need to get this functionable?

tickedon, from these forums, works for phpaudit, so I'll let him tackle these questions. I'm also interested in using idevaffiliate with phpaudit pretty soon, so I'm curious what level of integration it has.

So far, I've only used the phpaudit software "by itself" and it works very well in that capacity to manage licenses and handle the order/sale/downloads.

But idevaffiliate integration would be nice. This might be something you need to talk to the idevaffiliate developer about, actually....

Mr. Zippy, Tickedon, and others:

correct me if I'm wrong, so phpaudit will allow me to set up a shopping cart for my 1 product of software, allowing users to pay me through electronic gateway (like Paypal?), and then after order give them the download? Also, will the buyers be able to give the links to their friends... not that it matters because phpaudit has the license manager and will prevent users from selling their activation codes. I know Vibralogix has a program called "Linklok URL" which will hide the true location of the file.

Can I contact tickedon in regards to integration with idevaffliate? Or if tickedon can respond to this thead, I would appreciate that too.

Thanks for helping me solve this problem and putting this puzzle together. So as of now, I have phpaudit, idevaffiliate, vibralogix on the table, I will know need to know how I would go about achieving my main task of selling one piece of software.

nimmers, feel free to contact us through our site :)

We worked with the idevdirect guys to get PHPAudit integrated with idevaffiliate properly. Within idevaffiliate you go the integration page and then select PHPAudit from the dropdown menu. Within PHPAudit, you simply activate the idevaffiliate module, enter a few details, select which product(s) to activate the module for and the two will now communicate. When a user then orders a product, the details are automatically passed through to idevaffiliate during the checkout process which allocates the commission to the correct user.

This way PHPAudit handles the billing/licensing/downloading, and idevaffiliate does what it does best (managing affiliates & payouts).

Your explanation of how the PHPAudit order process works is spot on. PHPAudit supports a few different payment processors, including Paypal. With PHPAudit, downloads are all held under the web accessible root (where your server supports it) and so it's impossible to download the file by entering a URL. The user needs to be logged into the client area and have purchased your product before they get access to the download.

Wow that is really solid combination. I sent an email to phpaudit maybe 30 minutes ago and I believe you addressed some, if not all, the questions I asked. Thanks so much.

So I guess I should be in for $99 in Idevaffiliate 4.0, and phpaudit (I suppose the phpauditv2 and NOT the lite). It's tough deciding between # of license because this is a startup and have no idea of the demand. I don't even know if it should be hosted or ran on my server? I have on idea with what to go with and what options. Do you have any student discounts?

Last question, is Idevaffiliate checkout screen/module running on phpaudit... it sure seems so!

Wow that is really solid combination. I sent an email to phpaudit maybe 30 minutes ago and I believe you addressed some, if not all, the questions I asked. Thanks so much.

So I guess I should be in for $99 in Idevaffiliate 4.0, and phpaudit (I suppose the phpauditv2 and NOT the lite). It's tough deciding between # of license because this is a startup and have no idea of the demand. I don't even know if it should be hosted or ran on my server? I have on idea with what to go with and what options. Do you have any student discounts?

Last question, is Idevaffiliate checkout screen/module running on phpaudit... it sure seems so!


When I get back in a few hours, I'll check over your ticket and make sure everything was answered.

If you order the 250 license version, you can upgrade to the 1000 or unlimited whenever you need by paying the difference in price. You're not stuck the initial purchase limit. The PHPAudit v2 and Lite licenses are also identical feature wise, with the exception Lite is limited to a single order form and client area (the owned licenses support unlimited order forms and client areas).

If you are worried about the initial start-up cost, you can buy idevaffiliate for $99 and then buy a PHPAudit 250 license with 12 monthly payments of $9.99 (after the 12 months you own the license as if you had paid it all in one go). This spreads the cost and avoids any large investment for start-ups :) I'm afraid we don't have any student discounts or other discounts available.

And yes, we do run idevaffiliate ourselves for our affiliate program :D