I've wanted to build this exact thing so many times—nicely done! I haven't dug into the details too much, but does it support digital downloads? That and "lead magnet" downloads are two things that would help a lot of stores!
Thank you! we initially focused on physical products, but adding features for digital products should be even easier. Could you point me to your ideal solution or describe how it would work in a perfect scenario?
Something we could use as an inspiration for both: digital and lead magnet downloads
Sure thing! On the pure digital download side, take a close look at what Gumroad [0] is doing. Also check out Sellfy [1], which is also sort of a Shopify replacement.
In terms of lead magnets, you might check out Podia [2], which supports lead magnets as well as digital products.
Some thoughts on how basic digital purchases might work:
- The seller upload files related to a purchase (which may include variations, such as macOS, Linux and Windows binaries) to cloud storage somewhere (perhaps S3)
- After purchase, the buyer gets an email with either a license token or a download link, which leads to YNS. YNS verifies the purchase and proxies the download
- Ideally YNS allows buyers to resend the download link or download the file again on the site
- Also ideally, YNS allows the seller to issue an update, which will alert all the buyers about a new version available to download
The MVP is simple one-time purchase downloads. Subscriptions are probably out of scope for a minimal shop experience.
The lead magnet flow would be basically the same but with no purchase, but that may make it difficult if Stripe is serving as the backend!
