Why Are Half My Buyers Unable To Download The File?

[rusticbohemian]

Hi.



I'm really getting frustrated because it seems like half my buyers are unable to download my ebooks once they've paid for them. I'm not sure if they're all just idiots or there's something wrong with E-junkie, but it's a serious problem eating up tons of my time in what should be an automated process. I waste a fair amount of time and get distracted resending download links or attaching the files to emails.



I get at least 1 message a day that goes like this:



"I purchased Andrews savory sauces and dressing book for my iPad and was having trouble downloading it. Now it says that I attempted it 5 times and it has expired yet I still don't have my book. Where did it download? I have iBooks and kindle on my iPad and it's is not in either of those. Did I miss something what are my options now that the link is expired?"



Or this:



"Hi,

i cant get the book to download, please help!

thanks"



Or this:



"Hi there Andrew,



I had trouble working out how to download your dressings and sauces ebook onto my computer and with several attempts, it expired on me. I've already paid (today) and can't wait to get in and have a look! What do we do about this? Could you send me through the download link to try again please? I have just google searched how to "Download and Save an E-book, so I should be good to go on my next attempt.



Thanks and Kind Regards,"





Anyone else having this problem?



What's wrong?

[E-junkie_Guru]

First, bear in mind that Apple only allows direct downloads to their iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPodTouch) from their own App Store; they do not allow direct downloads from the Web to those devices, so those buyers would need to download using a regular computer and then sync the file from there to their iOS device.



You may wish to add instructions to your thank-you/download page advising iOS buyers accordingly, and others to simply click the link to download (rather than trying to do a right-click > Save As..., which will not work). You can add this message on every thank-you page by putting it in Seller Admin > Account Preferences > Common Thank-you Page HTML, or add it to the thank-you page for each product in the Message (HTML) field of the products' settings.



We haven't had any other reports indicating a general problem with our download system lately; these help pages cover the most common reasons for slow or stalled downloads or links that seem to expire prematurely:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/trouble.downloads.slow-stalled.htm

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/trouble.downloads.expired.htm



I notice one of your products is configured to only permit 3 Attempts at starting a download; this is quite likely to increase the proportion of buyers who are unable to complete a download successfully before their link expires due to the reasons explained at the links above. We recommend sticking with our default expiration settings allowing up to 5 Attempts within 120 Hours.



That said, only about 5% of your buyers in the past month used up all their Attempts, so they may be running into other issues like those explained at the "slow-stalled" help link above, or they're just waiting too long and trying to claim their download after the Hours limit has already been met (this counts Hours since payment, not starting from their first download Attempt). You can always reactivate expired links in your Seller Admin > "Re-activate expired links & Re-send thank-you email".



If they're not receiving your thank-you emails with a link to their download page at all, ask them to check their Spam folder and mark the message as Not Spam. If they still cannot find the message, you can go to your Transaction Log in Seller Admin, right-click on their Transaction ID and Copy Link, then paste that thank-you page link into your personal reply to the buyer, and may be a good idea to reactivate their link right then while you're at it.

[rusticbohemian]

I'll try increasing the download attempts limit and changing the thank you page.



Thanks for the input.

[garagedoor]

E-junkie Guru, are you saying in your first paragraph of your response that you need a regular pc to download or can Apple users use an iMac or other Apple computer. I ask because sometimes the expression 'regular computer' will mean no Apple product. Thanks,

[E-junkie_Monster]

Apple's gotten better about allowing downloads on their mobile devices since this thread was live, so buyers with iPads/iPhones/etc should be able to download as well as buyers with Apple desktops. It may be necessary for some buyers to install a download management app though, especially if they have an order device.

[garagedoor]

Thanks so much for the information.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Also see this related discussion for further details about downloading to mobile devices:

http://www.e-junkie.com//bb/topic/6281#post22430



Since that can be a bit of a mixed bag, if you expect many buyers may need to download to mobile devices, you may wish to customize your thank-you/download pages to add special instructions for mobile users:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.custom.thankyou-page.htm



That said, most users who want to download things to their device from the Web and have done so previously would already have sorted this out on their own by the time they purchase and try downloading your file(s), so it's really only an issue with buyers who have never downloaded anything to their device from anywhere but the device's official "app store" before, or if you're providing an uncommon file type that may not be recognized by any app already installed on their device (e.g., a PDF reader app that can open .pdf files).

[cmoote]

Almost all users have no problems downloading on iPads with Safari. I have posted a video as many didn't know how to use iBooks to read ePubs or were afraid to try them. At the same time I also did ones for MAC and PCs. Android will follow soon.

other readers of this forum - please feel free to see these at:

http://mootepoints.com/ebooks.html



In the previous posts you were implying downloads only work from the Apple Store, this is only correct for IOS programs, not for other types of downloads (I won't discuss music as that is a whole other topic!). Also you don't need to be adding in any additional email download clients or needing to download to a desktop or laptop then transferring to the tablet or mobile device. Frankly many users don't even have desktop or laptops anymore, so this isn't practical.



I am am not much of a user of IOS devices, however since most of our customers are, I have taken the time to learn how to support them and I strongly suggest E-Junkie do this too! Sure - it's frustrating, but we can't change our customers habits.

[artie]

Strong second on the "take the time to learn how to support [our customers]." iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches don't ship with Adobe Acrobat Reader installed by default. iPad users in particular often /don't/ sync their iPads to their computers—for some people, the iPad /is/ their main computer.



iOS devices that have Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, and Apple iBooks software installed are /much/ less likely to encounter the dreaded "Safari cannot download this file" error messages.



I sync all my devices and I always install Adobe Reader/ Nook/ Kindle software on any new device that I get. But I am not my target customer; my target customer is not nearly so adept. So I need to do everything I can to learn about and help my customers. Otherwise, there will be frequent "Safari cannot download this file" messages. My customers will not blame Apple/Adobe/E-junkie for these errors; they will blame me. I've learned a lot from sessions where I "shadow" several of my friends and colleagues as they "shop" my E-junkie store. I watch them do dumb stuff while I bite my tongue. I've changed all my product download E-mails and thank-you pages to include links to the Adobe download site, and I've upped the link expiration count to 4 from my usual 2.



If E-junkie wanted to be awesome in this struggle (I notice that several threads lament the iPad/PDF combo issue), you might craft a set of template-based download pages for the various "major" file download types. A fluid layout that allows advanced users to just grab the file and move on, but that also draws the mobile user's attention to "You'll need Adobe Acrobat" or "Make sure your version of iBooks is current"



Good luck!

[sassy]

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts, what works and what might not work.



SR, I really appreciate you sharing your vids. As someone who doesn't have an iPad, iPhone or use Mac it's incredibly helpful!! Thanks again. xo!

[charlie]

The problem continues for me...but in all cases, if I attach the file to an email and send it to them, they can do a save-as and then open the file properly. Anyone else had this experience?

[E-junkie_Guru]

Charlie, it appears we've already replied to your email about this, where you indicated your Apple iOS mobile device users are particularly affected. That is most likely due to the fact that iOS doesn't provide for any general-purpose file storage; instead, each app has its own storage, so if the user does not have an app already installed that can open the type of file to be downloaded, Safari won't download the file because it doesn't know which app should store the file -- e.g., downloading a PDF to an iPad won't work unless the buyer has already installed a PDF reader app such as iBooks or Adobe Reader.



Also advise your buyers to just click/tap the "Click here" link we provide to download the file. It won't work if they try to right-click or long-tap on the link to get a "Save as...", because the link triggers a download script, rather than being linked directly to the file itself.