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

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

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Click on the button “insert” to add.

Next, click on Catalog -> Option Value Manager

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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)

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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.

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

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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)

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

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  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:

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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 :)

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Related tutorials that might interest you:

  1. How to create attributes in ZenCart
  2. ZenCart ebook downloads and permissions
  3. How to add quantity discounts in ZenCart
  4. How to install ZenCart: Part I
  5. Backing up your ZenCart files in cPanel

About Gerae Lindsey

Gerae has been a freelance designer for 8+ years. She currently resides in Southern Arizona with her husband and children where she enjoys gardening, reading, and of course, fiddling with WordPress and ZenCart.

2 Comments

  • October 9, 2009 | Permalink |

    thanks a lot for this tutorial. i really helped me a lot.

    I see a download option, but i am not able to figure out How the user will download it.

    i mean to say.. it still adds qty. box.and when will he get download link

  • October 23, 2009 | Permalink |

    The user will still have to complete the checkout process. After completing checkout, the download link will be displayed. Hope that helps :)

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Tutorials and images were personally written/created by me, Gerae Lindsey, and are copyrighted to myself. You are free to link to them from your website, but please do not post them on your website. All tutorials were written for use with Microsoft Windows. I recommend and personally use Firefox to browse the Internet, but these tutorials should work for Internet Explorer as well. No warranty or guarantee is made; use of the tutorials is done so at your own risk. I recommend you make a backup BEFORE installing any software or script, or making ANY changes to your website.