What's a reasonably priced way to sell large files online?
May 23, 2010 9:02 PM Subscribe
What is a cost-effective solution to sell collections of large files (~500MB each totaling ~4GB per collection) online?
The site sells collections of graphics templates online, and ships them out on DVDs. I'd like to try offering them for download. I've purchased aMember that integrates with the shopping cart (UltraCart) to sell "memberships" and planned to restrict certain directories containing the files. But aMember is running on the same server (MediaTemple) as the storefront. When we announce a new product to our subscribers, I'm concerned the server will slow down, causing problems for customers trying to place an order.
I've found several ecommerce services that can handle digital downloads, but they focus on eBooks and software. Costs get really high when dealing with the large file size and bandwidth as compared to Amazon S3.
I'm not fluent in Amazon S3 / Cloudfront or Rackspace Files, but from my research it seems that if someone gets a direct link to a file, there's no way to restrict downloads. Either of those solutions seem like the answer if there is a way to restrict access, but I'm open to other solutions too.
The main end goal is:
* Time-limited (2-3 days after the purchase)
* Restricted per user (limited # of downloads per user login)
* Fairly low cost ($100-$200/month)
I estimate about 50GB of total storage (10 products) and 500GB to 1TB/month of bandwidth.
Ease of use is another factor. I'm technical, but not particularly familiar with e-commerce or the latest cloud storage solutions. If you know of a great solution that's expensive, I'd like to look at it.
The site sells collections of graphics templates online, and ships them out on DVDs. I'd like to try offering them for download. I've purchased aMember that integrates with the shopping cart (UltraCart) to sell "memberships" and planned to restrict certain directories containing the files. But aMember is running on the same server (MediaTemple) as the storefront. When we announce a new product to our subscribers, I'm concerned the server will slow down, causing problems for customers trying to place an order.
I've found several ecommerce services that can handle digital downloads, but they focus on eBooks and software. Costs get really high when dealing with the large file size and bandwidth as compared to Amazon S3.
I'm not fluent in Amazon S3 / Cloudfront or Rackspace Files, but from my research it seems that if someone gets a direct link to a file, there's no way to restrict downloads. Either of those solutions seem like the answer if there is a way to restrict access, but I'm open to other solutions too.
The main end goal is:
* Time-limited (2-3 days after the purchase)
* Restricted per user (limited # of downloads per user login)
* Fairly low cost ($100-$200/month)
I estimate about 50GB of total storage (10 products) and 500GB to 1TB/month of bandwidth.
Ease of use is another factor. I'm technical, but not particularly familiar with e-commerce or the latest cloud storage solutions. If you know of a great solution that's expensive, I'd like to look at it.
from my research it seems that if someone gets a direct link to a file, there's no way to restrict downloads
No, that's not accurate. You can use throw-away keys that are good for limited time-frames (so you could send an email with a link that would only be good for a week or whatever).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:31 AM on May 24, 2010
No, that's not accurate. You can use throw-away keys that are good for limited time-frames (so you could send an email with a link that would only be good for a week or whatever).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:31 AM on May 24, 2010
Response by poster: unixrat: Thanks for the pointer, I'll look into that service.
You can use throw-away keys that are good for limited time-frames (so you could send an email with a link that would only be good for a week or whatever)
Is there a way to restrict downloads during that period of time? e.g. If the link is valid for a week, could the number of downloads be limited as well?
posted by jaden at 9:09 AM on May 24, 2010
You can use throw-away keys that are good for limited time-frames (so you could send an email with a link that would only be good for a week or whatever)
Is there a way to restrict downloads during that period of time? e.g. If the link is valid for a week, could the number of downloads be limited as well?
posted by jaden at 9:09 AM on May 24, 2010
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posted by unixrat at 5:02 AM on May 24, 2010