I don't like releasing a product or service in "beta". Basically, it is just a way of saying, this might have some issues with it so don't complain. Google loves teh Beta! Any time I have heard criticism of a Google offering, someone quickly responds, "Give them a break, it's in Beta, what do you expect?" Well, I don't want to use the term as an excuse. Nor do I want a year long Beta as many people seem to do. I'd like to have a full roll out in a week or two, depending on the holiday craziness.
Right now, the PayLoadz digital goods ecommerce system is enabled to send the customers of our sellers their file on CD instead of a download. A lot of people prefer CDs, or do not have the connection to download very large files, so they would rather have a CD shipped to them. Great. We can now do this for them.
These are the current CD Fulfillment System limitations:
Single Item Purchase: The first release will require that you sell a CD by itself. You can't use the shopping cart method at this time. Should not be a huge deal in a lot of cases. We already built the shopping cart functionality for the most part, but want to see how this goes. In the near future, customers will be able to add a CD backup to their download, or just get all of the files on a CD.
Data CD Format: The system is capable of doing DVDs and Music/Audio CDs. We don't have the full logistics of the user interface in place to handle these two options, but will be adding them soon. So if you are selling a disc, ensure it is around 750MB or less in size.
Single File Products: Only products that have a single file attached to them can currently use the system. This is a limitation of our provider's API. This is being addressed as I write this and this limitation will be removed in a few days.
CD Mailers: The current CD mailers will be minimally branded with PayLoadz designs. The API we are using to fulfill the CDs provides a means to customize the mailer and disc image, so we will build that into teh full release system as well.
For more information, we have a short help entry here.
Happy Holidays,
Shannon
