Mechanics of selling
lazarus / 38-Networking and Web Programming

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Davo · 2012-07-08 06:31

Can anyone say if there is a good book/article/paper/whatever that
explains in simple language how to go about building and/or buying-in
the specifics of “selling” an application via the internet?  By
“selling” I don't mean “marketing” which I take to mean the promotion
of sales.  By “selling” I mean the usual automated system that :

gets the customer's details
gets the customer's payment
uploads the installation file to the customer's computer
sends a registration key to the customer's email address
on getting the customer's response, adds the registration details to
the application.

Any pointers would be most welcome.

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IPguy · 2012-07-09 12:11

I do not have any useful links.  My web designer has solved the
payment issues for me.  We allow major credit cards via the paypal
system.  Not ideal, but it will do for now.

What I'm doing is allowing the customer to download the program and
run it in   evaluation mode.  There is a registration button in the
app which generates a machine specific key.

When an order is placed, the user has to enter their customer &
contract information along with the machine specific key.  Once the
funds has cleared, I generate a registration code from the key and
email that back to the user which they then apply to  unlock partial
or full functionality. 

If/when the volume increase to the point that this manual process
becomes annoying, we will create an automated key generation process.

I did create a registration application to generate the codes and to
record the key, codes and customer info.

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Davo · 2012-07-16 04:43

Thanks for your reply IPguy.

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Graeme · 2012-07-16 10:59

Quote from: Davo on July 08, 2012, 08:31:57 amAny pointers would be
most welcome.
You need to contact any of the many e-commerce vendors out there. They
normally take a percentage of your sale, or charge a fixed amount per
month. They will give you HTML code templates that you could add into
your website design. Customers would click on the Buy link, you can
collect some information, and then send them to the e-commerce
vendor's website for there credit card details. They normally notify
you of a sale via email, at which point you can wait until the payment
is in your account, and then dispatch the product.

Google "micro isv" for a lot more information.

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Davo · 2012-07-19 03:52

Spot on Graeme.  Just what I need.  Thanks.