Media/File Fulfillment

[shayward]

Hi all

My mother-in-law is creating an online store where she can sell MP3s and PDFs of her counseling lectures.

Her online store will sell a whole variety of things and the digital files is just one part and she doesn't want to have 2 or 3 solutions... it's all gotta be one store.

So basically, the customer buys (possibly among other things) a couple of digital files. They are either immediately sent to a page where they can click to download (good for 24 hours) or emailed links (good for 24 hours) shortly after the transaction.

The e-store can send us an email with the products purchased and customer information and it can also post a query string to a url of our choosing.

Short of rolling my own media fulfillment solution, is anyone aware of an off-the-shelf product (whether PHP scripts or a Windows application) that will provide media fulfillment capabilities for an e-store that otherwise has none?

Many thanks
- Shaun

[Sysmom]

Zen Cart should do the trick, as should Cube Cart. I'm sure there are others.

deb

[Tony Kanago]

ZenCart, CubeCart, OSCommerce, VirtueMart, and so on. Almost every eCom solution out there will do it.

I recommend you go with a Windows-based one though if that's your experience in programming.

The built-in method for handling the downloads is usually a little different than what you described, and each package is different, but they're all very effective.

[shayward]

Thanks, Guys

The big issue that I have is that I can't use any of those options for the e-Store/Shopping-cart. The e-store is through my mother-in-law's bank and she wants to keep that.

Would any of those solutions work for just the media fulfillment portion without a lot of hacking? So, I feed them a query string and they handle the rest?

The option I'm looking to maybe avoid is writing my own fulfillment system. I was considering a solution that would automatically:

1. Pull order information through a query string, FTP, or Email
2. Parse the information for the ordered SKUs and customer's email
3. Put the ordered files to a cryptical folder (something like mydomain.com/files/fulfillment/AE443-FE3B2-98C3F-332E3/SomeFile.mp3)
4. Send an email to the customer with links to the files
5. Remove the folder after so much time

Not to mention:

• Logging all of this
• Allowing the user to "re-fulfill" an order
• Having fault-tollerance and/or multiple nodes in case one goes down

logging all of this and all

I was hoping to find a pre-fab solution that would do something like this but maybe it isn't useful for anyone else.

To roll my own, my options are:

1. Roll a Windows app that uses POP3 and FTP - an option I'd be very comfortable with
2. Learn PHP and write a media fulfillment web site - something I could do but there would be a big time-requirement
3. Learn PHP and Drupal module development and roll my own Drupal module - something that would be Ubercool but REALLY time-consuming

I know that numbers 2 and 3 would probably be the ideal solutions... keeping it all web-based. But I'm out of familiar territory and I don't know that I really have the time to devote.

Option number 1 would take a while as it is, but at least I know what I'm doing... maybe

Any advice?

[Sysmom]

OK, I'm out of this loop already, hopefully Tony knows the answers. I've never had to dig that deep into either of the Carts I'm familiar with to know.

I suppose telling the bank to get with the program isn't an option? I'm kind of surprised they'd lock her into one thing.

deb

[shayward]

I suppose telling the bank to get with the program isn't an option? I'm kind of surprised they'd lock her into one thing.

The bank solution isn't bad but it's geared towards people selling physical goods and services. It's fully integrated with her bank account (funds go in the next day) and it gives her a virtual terminal.

So media fulfillment just isn't their thing

Thus far, I've put in close to 300 hours on this project and there is no end in sight. I'm starting to get a little weary

[Tony Kanago]

Shayward,

Definitely roll your own via ASP.NET if that's the case. It should be a very straightforward process beyond the email component. Plus, I can contribute! Write it basically as a Windows application running on a Windows-based host. It should be incredibly quick to write.

[shayward]

Thanks, Tony

.NET has an SMTP class built in for sending email. I'd have to buy a POP3 component and an FTP component... cost is about $400.

I've run the cost by my mother-in-law and she's not too thrilled with it but $400 would be, like, 8 hours of my time if I were getting paid

[Lucas]

I recently cracked the sending mail area of VB.net, shouldn't be much different for what you use.


EG

Dim smtp As New System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient("smtp.gmail.com", 587)
Dim message As System.Net.Mail.MailMessage

smtp.Credentials = New System.Net.NetworkCredential("USERNAME", "PASSWORD")
message = New System.Net.Mail.MailMessage("FROM ADDRESS", "TO ADDRESS", "Subject", "Message")
smtp.EnableSsl = True 'needed for Gmail
smtp.Send(message) 'send email - application will momentarily lock up but only for a second or so.

[Tony Kanago]

Lucas, sending mail can be even more simplified in recent .net additions. Also Lucas, get into threading if your application is locking. The interface and that logic shouldn't operate on the same thread; blocking isn't a great thing to do.
But Shay, to access a POP mailbox and handle some FTP shouldn't involve purchasing any components; it could literally be two or three hours to do that kind of addition yourself.

I'm a little more curious as to why any of this is necessary though. Sending email is one thing, but I'm not sure where receiving mail or utilizing FTP from this end is necessary. All I see is a web form/mvc/dynamic data interface to a database with an uploader control to manage the store, a similar interface to buy, a backend component to send the mail.. Seems straightforward enough to me. So where does POP/FTP come in?

[shayward]

Hi Tony

Mmm... multithreading.

this.Invoke((MethodInvoker)delegate {
// Anything that needs to run on the UI thread
});

Here's where the POP3 comes in.

I'd be writing a Windows app, not a web app. The web server does not support ASP or ASP.NET.

Orders would be emailed from the e-Store so I'd need the POP3 component to download mail from the mail box where they were sent. Or an IMAP component but POP3 is good.

As for FTP... that would be for order fulfillment. A customer's order would be FTPed to a cryptic folder name and erased some time later (maybe 72 hours).

There are other ways of doing this but all of them involve either manual processes or information being sent over plain-text.

The only ideal solution is to write a full PHP solution but I just don't have the time at the moment to learn PHP (let alone POP3 with PHP).

- Shaun

[Tony Kanago]

I guess I'm still misunderstanding how this would hook into the web end of things - what I understand is some kind of dynamic web page as well as a Windows application. It seems more cost effective to just put this store on another hosting account, Windows specifically, as a subdomain.

Also, I still don't see why you'd use email instead of a database. Regardless of everything else I'm (mis)understanding, a database would be a stronger replacement for email. I guess I'm still stuck on how the website would dynamically do anything that you're suggesting it would - either email or some link generation for order fulfillment, as well as product catalogs.

So confusing!