SoftSeller - Add an Item Help

	Add an Item Help
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Add Item to Your Product List
This page allows you to specify how each of your products is to be handled by SoftSeller. All items to be handled must be entered using this form. Any items in an order that are not defined in SoftSeller using this form will be ignored. (So, if you also sell non-downloadable items from your site, do not enter them in SoftSeller, and SoftSeller will only handle the items that are defined. If SoftSeller receives an order notification from PayPal or Payza that does not include any downloadable items, the customer will see a simple "Thank you for your order" page instead of a page with download links or registration keys.)
There is no limit to the number of items that you can enter. When you enter an item and click the "Add Item" button, another blank form will be displayed to add another item. When you have finished entering your items, you can use the menu at the top of the page to return to the "Account Administration" page, or go to the "Your Products" page, or go to any other page in the menu. From the "Your Products" listing page, you can test the download for each item, and you can generate ordering buttons to copy and paste into your site. You can return to this page to add more items at any time by clicking the "Add Item" button on the "Your Products" page.
The top section of this form identifies the item, and the second section specifies how SoftSeller is to handle the item, i.e. by downloading file, by calling a script on your site that you have designed to return a registration key, or by giving the customer a key from a list of keys you have provided.

Item Number
or ID: This is a required field, and it must be unique for each of your items. You can assign any type of Item Number, ID, or Code that you want -- numbers and/or letters and special characters such as dashes and underlines -- but each of your products must have a distinct and unique identifier. This number will normally be sent back to SoftSeller in the PayPal or Payza IPN payment notification message, and SoftSeller will use it find the proper download URL or registration key.
If you create your ordering buttons in Payza or in PayPal's "button factory" instead of SoftSeller's, make sure that you use exactly the same Item Number (which is also called an Item ID on some PayPal pages, or Item Code in Payza) in those buttons that you have defined in SoftSeller, including any punctuation or special characters. This is how SoftSeller will normally identify the item, although PayPal does not require an Item ID when you create a button. You can omit the Item ID in PayPal provided that the Item Name is an exact match, but you must still enter a unique ID in SoftSeller, so our recommendation is that using the same ID in PayPal will reduce the chance of mismatches in the Item Name.

Item Name: Enter the name or short description of the product. Although this field is not strictly required for the system to work, it is highly recommended that you enter a product name or description, since this is what the customer will see in the order message and in the download link to identify the product.
This is also a secondary field to identify PayPal or Alert Pay order items when no matching Item Number or ID is found. For eBay sales, the Item Number sent through PayPal will be the auction listing number, which you cannot control, so the Item Name field must be used: The Item Name sent through PayPal will be your exact listing title in eBay, so the proper item will be identified only if the SoftSeller Item Name exactly matches your listing title.

Item Price: This is an optional field. If you enter a price for the item, SoftSeller will check each order to insure that the total amount paid is not less than the total price of the items ordered. This is a safeguard to prevent anyone from ordering your products using altered buttons with reduced prices. If the total payment is less than the total of the prices, SoftSeller will not allow downloading or grant registration keys and will instruct the customer to contact you, so use this field carefully. (In particular, if you sometimes sell the same product at different prices, you should enter only the lowest price here.)
Note that PayPal does not report the prices paid for each individual item in a multiple-item order -- it only sends SoftSeller the total amount paid -- so for orders with multiple items, SoftSeller will check the total of the prices against the total amount paid.

Select Download or Registration Method
Select one of the following methods by clicking in one of the round selection checkboxes on the left:
Download File from URL:
If your product is a downloadable file, enter the full URL to access the file, including "http://", your domain name, the directory path to the file, and the file name on your system. NOTE: This should be the same URL that could be used to download the file using a browser. (However, customers will never see this URL, because The SoftSeller download script requests the file from your server with a standard HTTP request to this URL and then passes the file back to the customer's browser.)
If you have files on a directory (or folder) that's configured in your Web server to use "authentication" then normal browser requests for those files will cause the browser to pop up a small window requesting a user name and password. You can specify this user name and password directly in the "Download URL" by using the following format:
http://userName:password@yourDomain.com/yourFile.type
NOTE: Spaces are not allowed in URLs or file names. If your original file name has spaces in it and you cannot rename it, you can use the special code "%20" in the URL to represent the spaces, but a better solution is to rename the file to remove the spaces. Otherwise, you will need to use the "Download As (file name)" entry below to specify a file name that does not have spaces.
Download As (file name): This is an optional field that you can use to essentially rename the downloaded file. That is, the file name that the customer receives does not necessarily need to be the same as the actual file name on your server: You can specify a name that may be more meaningful to the customer. (This feature also allows you to give obscure or misleading file names to the files actually stored on your system -- to make it harder to find or identify your products if some unauthorized person should gain access to your site -- but to give the files "real" names when they are downloaded to the customer's system.) You can leave this field blank and the customer will receive a file having the same name as the original file on your site. IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not use spaces in file names, and be sure to include the proper file type extension, such as ".zip", so the customer's system will know how to open the file.

Test Download URL This link will open your Download URL directly in a new window. If the URL is correct, you should get the standard browser "save file" pop-up window. If the URL is incorrect, you should see an error from either the browser (e.g. if the site is not found) or from your server (e.g. if the file is not found). You can close this window to return to the Item page and correct the URL. Note that this is a direct browser download, rather than a SoftSeller download, which can be used to quickly validate the URL. After you have saved the item, you can test the full SoftSeller download process by clicking the "Test Download" button for this item on your Product List page.
Use SSDownload.php script
This option allows downloading directly from your site, rather than passing your files through the standard SoftSeller download script. If you have frequent problems with incomplete downloads, then using this method may help, and it also downloads faster than the pass-through method. To use this method, however, you must be able to install a PHP script on your site's main ("root") directory. (Most hosting services support PHP scripts, so simply uploading the script should be sufficient.) The script is named SSDownload.php and it can be downloaded from here in a Zip file. Before uploading to your site, you must unzip the file and edit it to include your SoftSeller password. (The download file paths that will be passed to this script are encrypted using your SoftSeller password, so customers will not be able to see the actual download file paths.) Your password must be set in line # 64:
pwd = "...";
Replace the ... with your SoftSeller password (leaving the quotes around it). Then, upload the file to your site's root directory (i.e. the same directory as your home page). You still need to specify a working Download URL for the item. As an example of how this method works, suppose your Download URL for an item is "http://mySite.com/downloads/myItem1.zip". SoftSeller will expect to find the download script at "http://mySite.com/SSDownload.php" (which is why it must be installed in the root directory) and it will pass the "/downloads/myItem1.zip" file path to the script. The script will translate the URL path to the corresponding file system path and download the file to the browser. As always, be sure to test your downloads using the "Test Download" buttons on your Product List page.
Call Registration Script URL:
This option allows you to specify a script on your site that will be called with an HTTP "post" method. This script should return a plain text message with a registration key and any other information or special instructions that you want inserted into the order e-mail that is sent to the customer.
If needed, in this URL you can pass any purchase or customer data you want from the payment IPN message. To do that, just use the standard HTTP convention of placing a list of variable/value pairs after a "?" in the URL, separated by "&" characters, such as "?var1=value&var2=value&var3=value". For each "value" that you want inserted from the PayPal or Payza IPN, enclose the IPN variable name inside of "[" and "]" marks. For example, if your registration key depends on the registrant's name and your software product will ask the customer to enter that name when registering the key, you can have the customer's first and last names passed in the HTTP request as shown below, then return some text instructing the customer to enter that registered name along with the provided key. To pass the customer's first and last names from a PayPal IPN, you can use something like the following as the registration URL:
http://yourdomain.com/yourscript.php?firstname=[first_name]&lastname=[last_name]
The corresponding data from an Payza IPN would be:
http://yourdomain.com/yourscript.php?firstname=[ap_custfirstname]&lastname=[ap_custlastname]
You can use any input variable names that your script is coded to expect, but the names inside the [...] marks must be the names that PayPal uses in their IPN message. See the PayPal or Payza IPN documentation for a complete list, but some common ones are the customer's e-mail, named payer_email in PayPal or ap_custemailaddress in Payza, and the transaction ID, named txn_id in PayPal or ap_referencenumber in Payza.
Any text that is returned by your script is inserted "as is" into the customer's e-mailed order message, so it should just be a "human-readable" message, with no HTML formatting. (You can use line breaks, which will be copied into the e-mail message.)
Send Registration Key: If your product is shareware that the user must register with a key, you can use this method to give each customer a registration key. (You can use the "Label" input box to specify the text that you want to identify this data, if the default "Registration Key" is not appropriate.) This method assumes that the customer already has an unregistered copy of the software, and that the software itself provides a method to self-register when a valid key is entered. Enter a list of keys, one per line, in this text box and SoftSeller will assign one key to each customer. (There is no fixed limit to the number of keys that may be entered at once, but the maximum total size for this input text box is 30,000 bytes, including line-break characters, so the number of keys that can be entered depends on the length of each key.) When a key has been issued to a customer, it will be removed from the list.
In the box on the left, you can set a warning limit, which defaults to 5 unless you change it. When your key list is depleted to this number of keys remaining or less, SoftSeller will send you an e-mail reminder to enter more keys in the list.
If there is only one key remaining, SoftSeller will not remove it from the list; instead, any additional customers will continue to receive this last remaining key. (This is to prevent the possibility that additional customers will not be able to get a key. If giving the same key to two or more customers is not acceptable to your registration process, be sure to replenish this list before it gets down to one key remaining.)
Note that you can select either the "call script" method or the "send key" method and also provide a Download URL in the top box, as you would for a downloadable product. In this case, the customer will receive a registration key and will also be given a "clickable" download link for the product. (If you use this feature, just be sure to check either the "call script" or the "send key" checkbox as the method to use, even though you are entering a Download URL in the top box.)
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Item Number or ID:	This is a required field, and it must be unique for each of your items. You can assign any type of Item Number, ID, or Code that you want -- numbers and/or letters and special characters such as dashes and underlines -- but each of your products must have a distinct and unique identifier. This number will normally be sent back to SoftSeller in the PayPal or Payza IPN payment notification message, and SoftSeller will use it find the proper download URL or registration key. If you create your ordering buttons in Payza or in PayPal's "button factory" instead of SoftSeller's, make sure that you use exactly the same Item Number (which is also called an Item ID on some PayPal pages, or Item Code in Payza) in those buttons that you have defined in SoftSeller, including any punctuation or special characters. This is how SoftSeller will normally identify the item, although PayPal does not require an Item ID when you create a button. You can omit the Item ID in PayPal provided that the Item Name is an exact match, but you must still enter a unique ID in SoftSeller, so our recommendation is that using the same ID in PayPal will reduce the chance of mismatches in the Item Name.
Item Name:	Enter the name or short description of the product. Although this field is not strictly required for the system to work, it is highly recommended that you enter a product name or description, since this is what the customer will see in the order message and in the download link to identify the product. This is also a secondary field to identify PayPal or Alert Pay order items when no matching Item Number or ID is found. For eBay sales, the Item Number sent through PayPal will be the auction listing number, which you cannot control, so the Item Name field must be used: The Item Name sent through PayPal will be your exact listing title in eBay, so the proper item will be identified only if the SoftSeller Item Name exactly matches your listing title.
Item Price:	This is an optional field. If you enter a price for the item, SoftSeller will check each order to insure that the total amount paid is not less than the total price of the items ordered. This is a safeguard to prevent anyone from ordering your products using altered buttons with reduced prices. If the total payment is less than the total of the prices, SoftSeller will not allow downloading or grant registration keys and will instruct the customer to contact you, so use this field carefully. (In particular, if you sometimes sell the same product at different prices, you should enter only the lowest price here.) Note that PayPal does not report the prices paid for each individual item in a multiple-item order -- it only sends SoftSeller the total amount paid -- so for orders with multiple items, SoftSeller will check the total of the prices against the total amount paid.

Download File from URL:	If your product is a downloadable file, enter the full URL to access the file, including "http://", your domain name, the directory path to the file, and the file name on your system. NOTE: This should be the same URL that could be used to download the file using a browser. (However, customers will never see this URL, because The SoftSeller download script requests the file from your server with a standard HTTP request to this URL and then passes the file back to the customer's browser.) If you have files on a directory (or folder) that's configured in your Web server to use "authentication" then normal browser requests for those files will cause the browser to pop up a small window requesting a user name and password. You can specify this user name and password directly in the "Download URL" by using the following format: http://userName:password@yourDomain.com/yourFile.type NOTE: Spaces are not allowed in URLs or file names. If your original file name has spaces in it and you cannot rename it, you can use the special code "%20" in the URL to represent the spaces, but a better solution is to rename the file to remove the spaces. Otherwise, you will need to use the "Download As (file name)" entry below to specify a file name that does not have spaces.
	Download As (file name):	This is an optional field that you can use to essentially rename the downloaded file. That is, the file name that the customer receives does not necessarily need to be the same as the actual file name on your server: You can specify a name that may be more meaningful to the customer. (This feature also allows you to give obscure or misleading file names to the files actually stored on your system -- to make it harder to find or identify your products if some unauthorized person should gain access to your site -- but to give the files "real" names when they are downloaded to the customer's system.) You can leave this field blank and the customer will receive a file having the same name as the original file on your site. *IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not use spaces in file names, and be sure to include the proper file type extension, such as ".zip", so the customer's system will know how to open the file.*
	Test Download URL	This link will open your Download URL directly in a new window. If the URL is correct, you should get the standard browser "save file" pop-up window. If the URL is incorrect, you should see an error from either the browser (e.g. if the site is not found) or from your server (e.g. if the file is not found). You can close this window to return to the Item page and correct the URL. Note that this is a direct browser download, rather than a SoftSeller download, which can be used to quickly validate the URL. After you have saved the item, you can test the full SoftSeller download process by clicking the "Test Download" button for this item on your Product List page.
	Use SSDownload.php script	This option allows downloading directly from your site, rather than passing your files through the standard SoftSeller download script. If you have frequent problems with incomplete downloads, then using this method may help, and it also downloads faster than the pass-through method. To use this method, however, you must be able to install a PHP script on your site's main ("root") directory. (Most hosting services support PHP scripts, so simply uploading the script should be sufficient.) The script is named SSDownload.php and it can be downloaded from here in a Zip file. Before uploading to your site, you must unzip the file and edit it to include your SoftSeller password. (The download file paths that will be passed to this script are encrypted using your SoftSeller password, so customers will not be able to see the actual download file paths.) Your password must be set in line # 64: pwd = "..."; Replace the ... with your SoftSeller password (leaving the quotes around it). Then, upload the file to your site's root directory (i.e. the same directory as your home page). You still need to specify a working Download URL for the item. As an example of how this method works, suppose your Download URL for an item is "http://mySite.com/downloads/myItem1.zip". SoftSeller will expect to find the download script at "http://mySite.com/SSDownload.php" (which is why it must be installed in the root directory) and it will pass the "/downloads/myItem1.zip" file path to the script. The script will translate the URL path to the corresponding file system path and download the file to the browser. As always, be sure to test your downloads using the "Test Download" buttons on your Product List page.
Call Registration Script URL:	This option allows you to specify a script on your site that will be called with an HTTP "post" method. This script should return a plain text message with a registration key and any other information or special instructions that you want inserted into the order e-mail that is sent to the customer. If needed, in this URL you can pass any purchase or customer data you want from the payment IPN message. To do that, just use the standard HTTP convention of placing a list of variable/value pairs after a "?" in the URL, separated by "&" characters, such as "?var1=value&var2=value&var3=value". For each "value" that you want inserted from the PayPal or Payza IPN, enclose the IPN variable name inside of "[" and "]" marks. For example, if your registration key depends on the registrant's name and your software product will ask the customer to enter that name when registering the key, you can have the customer's first and last names passed in the HTTP request as shown below, then return some text instructing the customer to enter that registered name along with the provided key. To pass the customer's first and last names from a PayPal IPN, you can use something like the following as the registration URL: http://yourdomain.com/yourscript.php?firstname=[first_name]&lastname=[last_name] The corresponding data from an Payza IPN would be: http://yourdomain.com/yourscript.php?firstname=[ap_custfirstname]&lastname=[ap_custlastname] You can use any input variable names that your script is coded to expect, but the names inside the [...] marks must be the names that PayPal uses in their IPN message. See the PayPal or Payza IPN documentation for a complete list, but some common ones are the customer's e-mail, named payer_email in PayPal or ap_custemailaddress in Payza, and the transaction ID, named txn_id in PayPal or ap_referencenumber in Payza. Any text that is returned by your script is inserted "as is" into the customer's e-mailed order message, so it should just be a "human-readable" message, with no HTML formatting. (You can use line breaks, which will be copied into the e-mail message.)
Send Registration Key:	If your product is shareware that the user must register with a key, you can use this method to give each customer a registration key. (You can use the "Label" input box to specify the text that you want to identify this data, if the default "Registration Key" is not appropriate.) This method assumes that the customer already has an unregistered copy of the software, and that the software itself provides a method to self-register when a valid key is entered. Enter a list of keys, one per line, in this text box and SoftSeller will assign one key to each customer. (There is no fixed limit to the number of keys that may be entered at once, but the maximum total size for this input text box is 30,000 bytes, including line-break characters, so the number of keys that can be entered depends on the length of each key.) When a key has been issued to a customer, it will be removed from the list. In the box on the left, you can set a warning limit, which defaults to 5 unless you change it. When your key list is depleted to this number of keys remaining or less, SoftSeller will send you an e-mail reminder to enter more keys in the list. If there is only one key remaining, SoftSeller will not remove it from the list; instead, any additional customers will continue to receive this last remaining key. (This is to prevent the possibility that additional customers will not be able to get a key. If giving the same key to two or more customers is not acceptable to your registration process, be sure to replenish this list before it gets down to one key remaining.) Note that you can select either the "call script" method or the "send key" method and also provide a Download URL in the top box, as you would for a downloadable product. In this case, the customer will receive a registration key and will also be given a "clickable" download link for the product. (If you use this feature, just be sure to check either the "call script" or the "send key" checkbox as the method to use, even though you are entering a Download URL in the top box.)