Soliloquy WP is the best responsive slider plugin for WordPress. Thomas Griffen, the creator of Soliloquy, was kind enough to answer a few questions about his use and love of Easy Digital Downloads.
What about Easy Digitial Downloads made you choose it as a platform to sell your plugin?
It’s ability to be extended and customized to any situation. I had previously used Cart66 for Soliloquy, and after it taking down my site for nearly a week, I made the migration over to Easy Digital Downloads to handle everything. I have hooked, filtered, unhooked and the like in tons of areas of the plugin, and I love the results. The custom checkout page looks awesome, and my conversion rates have increased dramatically since switching to EDD. It’s super easy to use and setup, and I wouldn’t recommend anything else if you are selling digital downloads through WordPress.
Are there features in Easy Digitial Downloads that you find indispensable?
Hooks and filters. Every plugin should be using the core WordPress API in its ecosystem, and EDD does a superb job at this. There is always a hook or filter right where I need one to be. Because of that, I can turn EDD into whatever type of selling mechanism that I want.
How was your experience setting up and configuring Easy Digital Downloads for your site?
Migrating from Cart66 was a bit of a pain, but setting up EDD was really easy. It didn’t take long to get my products in place, get discount codes ready and integrate other payment systems into the plugin. Pippin was right there to help with any issues that did pop up, and I was even able to contribute back to the plugin with some fixes of my own. You won’t find anything easier to setup than EDD.
Are you using any Easy Digitial Downloads extensions? If so, which ones?
Sure am. I’m using the PayPal Pro/Express, Zendesk, Sharesale (which I built!), Email Templates and Manual Payments addons. They all rock and are an integral part of the success of Soliloquy. Each one plays a unique role and I am super grateful that they are available for me to use.
What’s a feature you wish Easy Digital Downloads had but doesn’t?
A Membership module. Membership is tough, but it makes sense to have a membership module available for those who buy the products. I built my own makeshift membership module for Soliloquy, and it would be great to have a generalized and distributable option for EDD sometime in the future.
After responding to these interview questions, Thomas was made aware of the Recurring Payments extension that provides integral membership features.
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I’m not surprised by this move at all. Before I started using EDD on my main projects, I was a little scared because it’s so simple to use. Typically, simpler things are reserved for simpler projects and it takes something more complex to use on bigger projects. There’s two things wrong with that, though:
1. It’s simply wrong. The right tool for the job is the right tool for the job… period.
2. EDD is complex… but not to the end user. The base product itself does so much it’s not even funny. But the fact that there are dozens of add-ons that have the ability to extend the plugin shows just how complex it really is. The fact that it’s so complex yet easy as hell to use says a lot.
Again, I’m not surprised that Thomas uses it at all. He’s a smart dude and EDD is a smart solution. Right now, I’m using the licensing, manual purchase, and affiliate add-ons. I’m totally pleased. I even use just barebones EDD on a site and it feels like I stole the plugin.
1. I couldn’t agree more, whether it’s EDD or another system. Personally I have always found the right tool is often the one that is NOT complex.
2. There is a lot going on behind the scenes 🙂
Thanks for the feedback!
EDD came out at the right time I was building my Thesis Skins business. Prior to EDD I had already spent 300$ to buy a lifetime-unlimited license for a membership software. Used it, wasn’t happy. Never touched it again.
Recurring payments module was on my wishlist and I hope it will soon support 2Checkout as well.
It’s on the todo list 🙂