The customer needed a new channel to sell downloadable content to their expanding customer base. The new application was necessary that allowed the clients to: purchase the website’s downloadable products via the client application, browse for downloadable product listings via a category hierarchy, search for downloadable product listings via keyword, create user account/view user account information and make secure payments from within the client application, and other relevant features.

SolovatSoft developed a web application that links into the client software application. It has the functionality of iTunes Music Store along with some additional features. For an idea of how the Download Store functios, please download the latest version of iTunes and visit the iTunes Music Store.

User client application communicates with server via SOAP-based protocol over HTTP
Ability for users to view/search media episodes and series catalogs using player browser
Ability for users to view catalogs hierarchy using player media browser
Ability for users to register using the player
Ability for users to purchase and download/re-download episodes or entire series.
Ability for store administrators to manage users, categories and series tree and upload episodes and episodes previews.
Ability to display complete “series” listings (a series is a group of video files) within the main window of the client application with the ability to purchase and download an entire “series” from the web page itself.
Pass down category information during the purchase/download of a file, so that the file is properly categorized upon completion of download within the client application on the user’s local drive.

By adding e-commerce video download to the software, the Download Store has the potential to generate repeat business and incremental revenue from existing customers through additional file downloads and establishes a platform for interaction with the client website. By offering value to customers via a linkage between our client application and web commerce backend, we can establish usage patterns of customers visiting client's website. In the future we can use this platform to build out community features, such as the ability to upload one’s own creations for sharing with and/or selling to other users.

Linux, PHP, XML, MySQL, SOAP, OSCommerce