Digital Fulfillment - longtime ignored feature request

[dannyschmidt]

Hi --

This post is partly a frustrated feature request, but partly information seeking.  First the frustrated feature request . . .

I'm a musician who uses the Square/Weebly platform for my online store.  I sell some physical goods (CDs, posters, etc etc), but also some digital goods (MP3s, a songbook PDF, etc etc).  And currently, the only way to fulfill digital sales is to manually email the customer with a download link via another platform.  I'm wanting a system where at the moment of transaction, the customer is given a download link to the file they just purchased (ideally, given this link via the browser they're using to complete the transaction, because SO MANY emails end up lost in spam filters.)

This feature used to exist on the Weebly platform before Square bought the platform.  Square removed it, but promised to add the feature back after the platforms had been fully integrated.  I've been waiting well over a year now that integration.

This isn't an edge-case feature.  This should be considered a basic feature for anything calling itself an "online" store.

So that's my rant.  I want Square to finally add this feature back so I can keep using Square for online sales.

Now for the information seeking part of my post . . .

How are other users hacking around this issue?  Is there a way to use automatic sales notification emails to get download information to customers at the time of purchase?  Or integration with some other third party system that can automatically send customers a link to the product they purchased? 

Thanks a million --

Danny

[AdamB]

Thanks for taking the time to voice your thoughts on this, @dannyschmidt. I can 100% understand why you want automatic digital fulfillment (I'm also a musician). During the AMA we did recently, the Square Online product team mentioned digital fulfillment is something that they are looking to improve. Hopefully that will result in automatic fulfillment like you're looking for.

If someone is using a third party service for digital items I would love to see how that's being handled. The only method I've seen is some people will use a subdomain with Bandcamp or something like that, then link to it with a link in their navigation.

[dannyschmidt]

Ugg . . . I just wrote you a detailed half hour reply, @AdamB . . . but it got lost when the Square forum asked me to log back in.  So never mind.  I'll just write back now to say thanks for taking the time to reply to my post.  Take care. 

[AdamB]

Ugh, that sucks, @dannyschmidt. Did you see a green bar about a saved draft? It should have saved one automatically as you typed and let you restore that after logging back in. I appreciate you replying again anyway, though!

[dannyschmidt]

Hmm . . . that's a great feature . . . but I don't see a green bar anywhere.  Or a folder of saved drafts.  I'll dig around some more in my profile to see if I've just overlooked something.  Thanks!

[dannyschmidt]

No sign of a drafts folder.  But I did discover my Achievements!  Oddly, no badge for Malcontent Curmudgeon Level One.  Is the Achievements system broken too?!

@AdamB 

[AdamB]

Haha... we'll have to add a badge for that!

By the way, the bar would be right above the text editing field when writing a reply. If you don't see it I'm guessing it didn't save for some reason, unfortunately. 😕 

[ritakirkman]

I have my website with faso.com, and they do have an option to host videos, and sell the video access. I haven't tried it yet but plan to. But what I'm really looking for right now (and months ago!!) is just what dannyschmidt is talking about. I need to sell a link to a pdf document containing an invite to a Zoom meeting (for a Paint-Along), some instructions, and a photo included in the document. For months I've been emailing each client separately to deliver the document, and YES It's Tiresome, Time-Consuming, and Full of Bouncing off of Spam Filters! Arrrggg!! Please, Square, get this feature sorted out!!

[AdamB]

Does the link in the PDF change, @ritakirkman? I think it might be a bigger challenge to include a PDF with a unique Zoom meeting link.

[ritakirkman]

Hi @AdamB, well, yes. One ideal setup would be to enable an automatic receipt to the purchaser that is customizable with linking capability, that we, the merchants, can assign whatever link we want to a particular item when it's purchased.  I would then make that link go to a pdf document that I would be able to host on my FASO site. The document would not be related to anything Square would need to do (eg: if I use this for a Zoom meeting, the Zoom link would be in the document, and the link to the document would be in the Square receipt.) So essentially, all that's needed is a customizable receipt that can include a hyperlink.

[ritakirkman]

At least, @AdamB, to continue that thought, that's what would work for ME. For others, who might not have anywhere to host a document, I can see that you might need to think about more complex customization of putting a link in a receipt, and maybe even making a receipt that is a document format itself, that can contain all the "instructions" and longer text that might go with a particular purchase.

But to answer your question now more accurately, I would think that any link in a receipt for any particular product, would remain the same link for that product. When the product changes, the link will change, but that would be a matter of creating separate buy buttons for the different products, which we all do anyway.

...Hmmm... I'd have to change my own method for my Paint-Alongs anyway. Currently I use the generic Square payment link, and the purchasers "send" me $22 though the link, but I have been using the same link on my site for all of the paint-alongs. I can see that I'd have to create specific payment buttons for each event if I want to utilize a link in an automatic receipt. ... Still, it would be an excellent feature, and one that I can use now with other digital goods.

[Bitship]

Hi folks. Our company (Bitship) has built a platform to make automatic delivery of digital goods sold on Square a breeze. We are opening up a limited Beta to a select number of merchants this week. If you are interested please send me a DM on Seller Community, or email us at contact (at) bitship.app, and we can get you the info to sign-up. Looking forward to the feedback.

You can also get started yourself by visiting https://bitship.app