Easy Digital Downloads Manual Purchases
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a powerful WordPress plugin designed for selling digital products. While most sales are automated, there are scenarios where manually creating purchases becomes essential. This guide will walk you through the process of creating manual purchases in EDD, covering various use cases and best practices.
Why Use Manual Purchases?
Manual purchases are crucial for several reasons:
- Offline Sales: If you accept payments outside of your website (e.g., bank transfers, cash), you need to record these transactions in EDD to maintain accurate sales records.
- Free Products or Trials: Offering free downloads or trial periods to specific customers requires manually creating a purchase without charging them.
- Customer Support: If a customer encounters issues with a purchase, you might need to manually create a new purchase to resolve the problem.
- Promotional Purposes: Distributing complimentary products for promotional activities or giveaways necessitates manual purchase creation.
- Internal Testing: Developers and store owners can use manual purchases to test download functionality and order processing.
- Migration of Data: When migrating from another e-commerce system, manual purchases can be used to transfer historical sales data.
Creating a Manual Purchase in Easy Digital Downloads
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a manual purchase in EDD:
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Access the “Sales” Section:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- Navigate to “Downloads” in the left-hand menu.
- Click on “Sales.”
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Add New Sale:
- On the “Sales” page, you will see a button labeled “Add New Sale” at the top of the page. Click on it.
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Customer Information:
- Customer: Start typing the customer’s name or email address. If the customer already exists in your system, their information will auto-populate. If not, you can manually enter their details.
- First Name, Last Name, Email: If it is a new customer, fill in the required customer information.
- User ID: If the user has a wordpress account on the site, you can assign the purchase to that user ID.
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Purchase Details:
- Date: Set the date and time of the purchase.
- Status: Choose the appropriate status for the purchase. Common statuses include:
- Complete: The purchase is successfully processed.
- Pending: The purchase is awaiting payment or other action.
- Refunded: The purchase has been refunded.
- Failed: The purchase could not be completed.
- Payment Method: Select the payment method used for the purchase, even if it was an offline payment. EDD offers a “Manual” payment method for recording offline transactions.
- Discount Code: If applicable, enter a discount code.
- Fees: add any additional fees that were incurred.
- Tax: Add any applicable tax.
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Adding Downloadable Products:
- Add Download: Click the “Add Download” button to select the products included in the purchase.
- Search and Select: Search for the desired product by name and select it.
- Price: Enter the price paid for the product. If it was a free product, enter “0.”
- Quantity: Specify the quantity of the product purchased.
- Repeat this process for each product included in the sale.
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Notes and Additional Information:
- Notes: Add any relevant notes about the purchase, such as details about the offline payment or specific customer requests.
- Transaction ID: If you have a transaction ID from an external payment processor, enter it here.
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Create the Purchase:
- Review all the information you’ve entered.
- Click the “Create Sale” button to finalize the manual purchase.
Important Considerations:
- Inventory Management: If you are managing inventory, ensure that manually created purchases are reflected in your inventory counts.
- Email Notifications: EDD usually sends purchase confirmation emails automatically. When creating manual purchases, you might need to manually send these emails to the customer, if needed.
- Reporting: Manual purchases are included in EDD’s sales reports, providing a comprehensive view of your sales data.
- Customer Accounts: If the customer has an account on your website, the manual purchase will be added to their purchase history.
- Licensing: If you are using EDD’s Software Licensing extension, manually created purchases will generate license keys for the products.
- Accurate Data: Ensure that all information entered is accurate to maintain consistent and reliable sales records.
- Permissions: Ensure that the user creating the manual purchase has the required permissions to do so.
Use Cases in Detail:
- Offline Payments: When a customer pays via bank transfer, log the transaction as a “Manual” payment in EDD. Add notes detailing the bank transfer details.
- Free Products for Reviewers: Provide free downloads to reviewers by creating a manual purchase with a price of “0” and a status of “Complete.”
- Customer Support Resolution: If a customer’s download link is broken, create a new manual purchase with the correct download links to resolve the issue.
- Data Migration: Import historical sales data from another platform by creating manual purchases for each transaction, ensuring accurate sales reporting.
By following these steps and considerations, you can effectively utilize manual purchases in Easy Digital Downloads to manage various sales scenarios and maintain accurate records for your digital product business.