Sell downloads on own free website

Mauritius
November 30, 2011 10:44am CST
Hello friends, Does anyone here sell downloads over the internet? Do you sell on sites like clickbank or payloadz or simply on your site? Is it possible to have a ones own website for free to sell downloads/ digital products. Thnaks for your responses.
1 response
• United States
30 Nov 11
I am a videographer and don't actually offer downloads for sale or otherwise but I do plan to. The process is that you must have a hosting account with enough bandwidth to upload the maximum about of material. Yoa also have to have a shopping cart and and SSL certificate so that your customers can feel secure and their orders can be encrypted. You cannot do this with a free site because you are not given enough space to upload material. I have unlimited hosting on http://godaddy.com and the price is something like $10 a month. That is a nominal price for what you are asking. Godaddy will sell you a SSL Certificate and a shopping cart. But you can also get free Open Source shopping carts. You can also save many by using an open source CMS (Content Management Software) such as Joomla or Wordpress to create your website. The problem with these Open Source website creation tools is that there is s a steep learning curve involved in using them but with perseverance you can do it.
• Mauritius
30 Nov 11
Thanks a lot Chakazuluu. I get your point and it makes sense. However, I would still prefer to start without investment and only use a paid hosting when I actually earn (I would rather invest my online earnings). But as you say, Joomla and wordpress would be so complicated. Your idea of using godaddy seems reasonable. I hope I can earn some $s so that I use godaddy hosting too. Againm Thanks a lot my friend.
• United States
30 Nov 11
Now that I am rethinking my answer based upon your concerns there are free hosting site available but you have to deal with certain rules that they put in place. Some of them require that that there be a minimum of downloads on your account and if you don't meet the minimum they will automatically delete your account. There are also other rules set in place that may put pressure on you. The other problem is that you will have to set up a free website of which their are many providers. In using a free website you have to deal with a lot of adds which they the providers use to actually make money. These adds can take away from and distract your customers from your product. I am not sure if you can add a shopping cart or SSL Certificate to the free sites. You will also have to figure out how to add a HTML or Java redirect to where your material is hosted in a secure way that will satisfy your customers.