How to sell ebooks using ZenCart

This tutorial will show you to sell ebooks (or other download-able goods) using ZenCart.

Before we begin, I am assuming you have already added an ebook as a regular product. If you have not yet done so, do this first. Just create a new product as normal.

You first need to login to the admin area for your ZenCart shopping cart.

Click on Catalog -> Option Name Manager

Type in “Download” into the Option Name box and choose “Download” as the Option Type. (see below)

Click on the button “insert” to add.

Next, click on Catalog -> Option Value Manager

Select “Download” as the Option Name. In the Option Value box, you will need to type in your desired file format. For example: PDF, Zip, MS Word, etc. Once entered, click on the “insert” button to add. (see below)

NOTE: If you will be offering your ebooks in multiple formats, you will need to insert them individually before continuing. (Example: PDF, Word, ZIP)

Now we need to add the above options to the ebook you have already added to the cart.

Click on Catalog -> Attributes Controller.

You should see a drop down menu containing all product categories. Select the category that contains your ebook.

Directly under “Select a Product to View and Press Display …” you should see your ebook titled listed. Click on it one time, until highlighted in blue, and then click on the “display” button to the right. (see below)

After you hit the “display” button, scroll down to the large tan colored box titled “Adding New Atrributes”

1. First, select “Download” from the Option Name box
2. Second, select the file format you entered previously – example: PDF

Now scroll down a little farther until you see:

In the box labeled “Filename” enter the URL to your file.

For example, if this is a PDF file, the URL would be something like www.yourdomain.com/downloads/yourfile.pdf

NOTE: All download files MUST be uploaded to the /downloads/ folder located in your ZenCart folder.

In the box labeled “Expiry days” enter the number of days you would like to make the ebook available to download after purchased. For example, you can enter the number 4 to allow a customer 4 days to download the file before having to re-purchase the ebook. Alternatively, you can enter 0 to allow customers unlimited time to download the file.

In the box labeled “Maximum download count” enter the maximum number of times a customer may download the file after purchasing it.

Once completed, click on the “insert” button to add the download file to the actual ebook product listing.

To verify the file has been added, check the actual product page for your ebook. You should now see the “Download” option added to the page.

I hope that helps!

If you run into any troubles, let me know below

Related tutorials that might interest you:

How to create attributes in ZenCart
ZenCart ebook downloads and permissions
How to add quantity discounts in ZenCart
How to install ZenCart: Part I
Backing up your ZenCart files in cPanel

Added by Gerae on Friday, September 25th, 2009 in ZenCart 1.3.8 Tutorials.