accordingly account admin allow always bear buyer buyers click common day device devices don download downloads field file files help html input iphone kindle limit link next page payment preferences problem product products purchased send settings system thank-you transaction unable waiting wish working

Hi.

I'm really getting frustrated because it seems like half my buyers are unable to download my ebooks once they've paid for them. I'm not sure if they're all just idiots or there's something wrong with E-junkie, but it's a serious problem eating up tons of my time in what should be an automated process. I waste a fair amount of time and get distracted resending download links or attaching the files to emails.

I get at least 1 message a day that goes like this:

"I purchased Andrews savory sauces and dressing book for my iPad and was having trouble downloading it. Now it says that I attempted it 5 times and it has expired yet I still don't have my book. Where did it download? I have iBooks and kindle on my iPad and it's is not in either of those. Did I miss something what are my options now that the link is expired?"

Or this:

"Hi,
i cant get the book to download, please help!
thanks"

Or this:

"Hi there Andrew,

I had trouble working out how to download your dressings and sauces ebook onto my computer and with several attempts, it expired on me. I've already paid (today) and can't wait to get in and have a look! What do we do about this? Could you send me through the download link to try again please? I have just google searched how to "Download and Save an E-book, so I should be good to go on my next attempt.

Thanks and Kind Regards,"


Anyone else having this problem?

What's wrong?

First, bear in mind that Apple only allows direct downloads to their iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPodTouch) from their own App Store; they do not allow direct downloads from the Web to those devices, so those buyers would need to download using a regular computer and then sync the file from there to their iOS device.

You may wish to add instructions to your thank-you/download page advising iOS buyers accordingly, and others to simply click the link to download (rather than trying to do a right-click > Save As..., which will not work). You can add this message on every thank-you page by putting it in Seller Admin > Account Preferences > Common Thank-you Page HTML, or add it to the thank-you page for each product in the Message (HTML) field of the products' settings.

We haven't had any other reports indicating a general problem with our download system lately; these help pages cover the most common reasons for slow or stalled downloads or links that seem to expire prematurely:
http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/trouble.downloads.slow-stalled.htm
http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/trouble.downloads.expired.htm

I notice one of your products is configured to only permit 3 Attempts at starting a download; this is quite likely to increase the proportion of buyers who are unable to complete a download successfully before their link expires due to the reasons explained at the links above. We recommend sticking with our default expiration settings allowing up to 5 Attempts within 120 Hours.

That said, only about 5% of your buyers in the past month used up all their Attempts, so they may be running into other issues like those explained at the "slow-stalled" help link above, or they're just waiting too long and trying to claim their download after the Hours limit has already been met (this counts Hours since payment, not starting from their first download Attempt). You can always reactivate expired links in your Seller Admin > "Re-activate expired links & Re-send thank-you email".

If they're not receiving your thank-you emails with a link to their download page at all, ask them to check their Spam folder and mark the message as Not Spam. If they still cannot find the message, you can go to your Transaction Log in Seller Admin, right-click on their Transaction ID and Copy Link, then paste that thank-you page link into your personal reply to the buyer, and may be a good idea to reactivate their link right then while you're at it.

I'll try increasing the download attempts limit and changing the thank you page.

Thanks for the input.