When we started ThemeXpert back in 2010, selling our templates and extensions was the biggest challenge for us (even still it is). Technology has been evolved so fast in 4 years and we saw several good software for Joomla, but the pain remain unchanged.
Our Story of Frustration
First, we tried Virtuemart extension for handling orders and download. Virtuemart is good for selling tangible products. It’s bottled with tons of features, most of them are never used.
Then we switched to Mighty Membership, a membership extensions. For this extension we had to change our business model and entered to subscription based selling model. We are still in this model but we started selling single template from last year which is another painful story.
Membership extension doesn’t have any download manager built-in, which completely makes sense but doesn’t fit us. We had to use separate download manager, and the pain began.
In 2013 we finally migrated to PayPlan which is also a membership extension comes with lot of integration. PayPlan integration with download manager such as PhocaDownload is a real relief for us.
When we started ThemeXpert back in 2010, selling our templates and extensions was the biggest challenge for us (even still it is). Technology has been evolved so fast in 4 years and we saw several good software for Joomla, but the pain remain unchanged.
Our Story of Frustration
First, we tried Virtuemart extension for handling orders and download. Virtuemart is good for selling tangible products. It’s bottled with tons of features, most of them are never used.
Then we switched to Mighty Membership, a membership extensions. For this extension we had to change our business model and entered to subscription based selling model. We are still in this model but we started selling single template from last year which is another painful story.
Membership extension doesn’t have any download manager built-in, which completely makes sense but doesn’t fit us. We had to use separate download manager, and the pain began.
In 2013 we finally migrated to PayPlan which is also a membership extension comes with lot of integration. PayPlan integration with download manager such as PhocaDownload is a real relief for us.
PayPlan is good for membership management where you can set access based on membership. But its not perfect solution for us or those companies who sell digital products.
Technical Jargon
First and foremost, we are maintaining 2 big extension for solving one problem. We need to keep eye of each component and update them accordingly. Compatibility is the biggest dilemma in Joomla and sometime you can’t update Joomla core because of these 3rd party extension.
From our experience, updating single product drastically affects others. Not all product can be updated at same time, they all have their own roadmap.
DigiCom Born
We decided to scratch our own itch and as a result DigiCom born. DigiCom stand for Digital Commerce and you can setup your own marketplace in a minute. DigiCom features in a nutshell :
- Sell single and bundle product. Bundle multiple product or category
- Built-in file manager, of-course Drag&Drop
- Download manager
- Extensive reporting
- Customer management
- Order management
- Discount management
- Emain templating
- Payment Integration such as Paypal(core), 2co(add-ons), Stripe(add-ons) and more
On top of that, we decouple everything and we call them add-ons so you only install add-ons you need. No more bloated code and features.
DigiCom is already under 3 and half months of development and we are hoping to release first beta later this week.
We are very much excited about DigiCom and we’ll share all its feature in a series of blog post. We are very open and always listen, so if you have any features in mind just let us know through comment box.
Ohhh, did I mentioned DigiCom will be absolutely FREE ? We'll host it on GitHub too.
For more information about DigiCom, please check out these other blog posts from our ongoing series:
