4.2 Defining our Business model

Time for some theory. Before solving definitively the LOGIC problem of our site we must define our so called 'Business model'.
This will help us to decide how to implement further our web site.
Let's write down some thoughts.
One web page have one or more different digital products.
Every product does not have shipping cost.
Each digital product is targeted to the buyer. (One registered copy for each buyer).
Please note that digital products have differences from the normal products.
They do not have any shipping costs and they are targeted to the buyer. Normally each user download it's copy and no someone's else copy. Since the product is downloadable we must guarantee that each buyer get's it's own copy.
With these thoughts i want make to you clear that :

• One digital product for each transaction
• Multiple identical digital products to the same person at once are not permitted

Unfortunately the shopping cart option that PayPal offers has the quantity option so we can not use it since we must guarantee our business model reality. The solution that it is proposed in this e-book is the 'BUY NOW' buttons with quantity=1. If someone has to buy two different digital items then he has to pay them separately and download them separately. This is even better for the customer because he will download each product separately.
Downloading one digital product with a quantity>1 means that the buyer is allowed to redistribute your digital production. This is not tolerated.
If you insist and want to make a package of two digital products then you have to make this fusion of products, a new digital product.
Example :
ebook A 10$ (ebookA.zip)
ebook B 10$ (ebookB.zip)
Specal offer ebookA+EbookB 15$ (ebookAB.zip)

For the customer this will result a two product option but in the reality this is ONE product solution for the seller (you). With this trick you can guarantee that each user takes his product and he will have no excuses redistributing your digital products.I hope that this business plan is clear to you and you understood the limitations and the differences between the normal products and the digital products. The 'Add to cart' option that offers PayPal does not have quantity limitation (at least i did not found it). Anyway if someday this changes, instead of 'BUY NOW' buttons you can put 'ADD TO CART' buttons the method of this e-book will still work.


If you want to see a demonstration of what it is written here, go to ebooks.com add a book to the cart and try re-adding the same book. The second e-book will not be accepted, this, with PayPal's adding cart cannot be done so we will stick up with 'BUY NOW' buttons. The same thing happens at the lulu.com. The printed version has the quantity attribute, the download version instead, has always quantity = 1. Figure fig:15b

fig:15b LuLu.com has quantity limitation equal to one for E-books. Notice that in the printed version the quantity can be changed.

Logging on your PayPal account clicking on 'Merchant Services' and selecting 'Buy Now Buttons' on the 'Add more options' we can clearly see the figure fig:16.

fig:16 'Buy Now' option on PayPal has quantity limitation

If you log on your PayPal account and click on 'Merchant Services' and select 'PayPal Shopping Cart' on the 'Add more options' we can see the figure fig:17.
fig:17 'Add to Cart' option on PayPal does not has quantity limitation