Last week we released version 4.3 of Download Monitor, which added an eCommerce solution to the plugin. We received a lot of feedback (and love) for this release, for which I’m very grateful. Pretty quickly it became clear that in order to support many use-cases our users have + being able to support future use-cases we have in mind, something had to change. Today we released version 4.4, which separates the download from the “sell-able” part, the product.
Why separate downloads and products?
We’ve separated products from downloads for a couple of reasons. One is that we feel like the data (like title and description) for a download is often different than that of a product. Your download data is informative while often your product data is optimized towards convincing your visitors to purchase.
Another reason is, by separating the two you are free to include the same download in multiple products. You can even have multiple downloads in the same product. This allows you to create things like bundles where you sell a group of downloads for a reduced price.
How to upgrade
You can update Download Monitor from your WordPress dashboard, just like any other plugin update. If you were already selling downloads since last week, there are a few small manual actions you need to do.
Enable the shop feature
You will need to enable the shop feature from the Download Monitor general settings. To avoid confusion for people that update, we decided to make the complete shop feature opt-in (disabled by default). When the shop option is not enabled, no references to the shop, other than the pages, are displayed.
Create a product
Create a product for each of the downloads you were already selling. You can read more on how to do this, by clicking here.
Update your shortcodes
Because you are now selling the product instead of the download, you will need to update your [dlm_buy] shortcode. Instead of entering the download ID, enter your new product ID.
Feedback
I’d love to hear what you think of this update and change. Like I stated in the beginning of this post, we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of feedback we got last release. We really do appreciate your comments, positive and negative. They help us create a better plugin for everyone.
This is a fantastic upgrade. I’ll play with this and see if it works nicely with my membership offers. Thanks for keeping DM on the cutting edge.