BracketPress Launches on Easy Digital Downloads

BracketPress is a great new WordPress plugin that helps you complete your March Madness tournament bracket. The site for the plugin, which sells a pro version and additional extensions, is using Easy Digital Downloads for the store. Scott Hack, the man behind the plugin, was kind enough to answer some questions for us:

1. What about Easy Digitial Downloads made you choose it as a platform to sell your plugin?

Using Easy Digital Downloads to sell our add-ons was a pretty easy decision. We knew that we were going to be developing our PRO add-on which allowed people to ping our server and download the updated winners and losers during the tournament. Because of that, we wanted to use some sort of licensing system. We needed a way to reasonably keep an eye on our server costs and resources. We also knew that due to the relatively short sales cycle we were going to have, that we would need to launch our PRO add-on before it was 100% complete to get feedback from users and find out where our pain points were once it was out into the wild. Because of that, we wanted our customers to be able to easily update their add-on. Easy Digital Downloads has an extension that already handled that. We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel and wanted to maximize our production time on OUR plugin, not writing and creating systems to support it. Additionally, I had read a tutorial post the developer had done on using bbPress as your support forum and your use of the Restrict Content extension. Essentially, the EDD developers had already laid out the path, I was just following it.

2. Are there features in Easy Digital Downloads that you find indispensable?

For us, the License and update engine extension are indispensable. We also just wanted something that just worked. We didn’t have time to really mess around with things for days.

3. How was your experience setting up and configuring Easy Digitial Downloads for your site?

It went really, really quickly. I think I had to RTFM twice. I looked at how to create my own button URL one time and then looked to see if it was possible to use the Content Restriction extension to link multiple sales to one forum. Which I found out I was not able to do.

4. Are you using any Easy Digitial Downloads extensions? If so, which ones?

We are currently using the License Extension, The S3 Extension, and the Content Restriction Extension. Additionally, we’ve purchased the Social Share Extension and the extension to run an affiliate program. We just haven’t gotten around to integrating them into our sales flow yet.

5. What’s a feature you wish Easy Digitial Downloads had but doesn’t?

I wish it was possible to bundle multiple items and still distribute a license code. Although, I know the license extension is not part of core. I think the easiest way to add the functionality would be by extending the discount system to allow for X dollars off or Y% off if X, Y, Z items are purchased. Then the items could still be purchased “individually” and the license would still be generated. Creating a single button to add multiple items at the same time would be a good match to the extended discount system. Which I’ve not tried, so maybe that is already possible.

Additionally, as I mentioned I purchased the Restrict Content add-on to EDD, and I wish that it had the capability to allow multiple purchases be tied to the same forum.