• Alternative to selling subscriptions: Selling New Versions!
  • Manages and organizes download versions
  • Enhances sales to existing customers
  • Discounts for updating
  • Shortcodes for Purchase History and Download History Pages
  • Archive of old download versions 
  • Shows if a version is outdated on the Purchase Receipt
  • Notifies Customers on the Product Page if they are entitled to Discounts for Updating
  • Full tracking of update-related sales
  • Works well for Single or Multi-Vendor Webstores
  • Fully integrated with EDD Frontend Submissions (FES) Plugin and UpsellMaster

What is this Plugin all About?

EDD Product Versions enables product versioning for all of your products and allows you to (1) generate additional revenues from selling updated download versions (existing customers can even be offered a discount for upgrading their products) as an alternative to selling subscriptions and/or (2) simply add a comprehensive archive of old download versions for easy reference to your customers. Plugin increases the monetization and customer retention of your webshop.”

Plugin Description

The EDD Product Versions Plugin introduces versioning of your download files, by saving old file versions of your download products, and offering a New Version Upgrade to existing customers, for an additional revenue flow.

You can either use this plugin to offer 1) old file versions to your existing customers for convenience or 2) offer upgrades, including price discounts, to existing customers. Customers who purchased old file versions will see a button on their purchase receipts to upgrade to the latest product version. This plugin is fully integrated with EDD FES in allowing vendors to create bundles, and new bundle versions.

Enhance your sales by selling updated versions of already existing products! 

Screenshots

Why do you need Product Versioning on your Digital Downloads webstore?

There are two main ways how to continue to monetize the sale of download products via an Easy Digital Downloads webstore:

  1. Selling Subscriptions (recurring revenues)
  2. Selling Product Updates

In the following let us explain what are the key differentiators of these two monetization optionsSelling Download Subscriptions vs. Selling Product updates for Downloads.

Monetization Option #1 – Selling Download Subscriptions

The first method of selling monthly or even yearly subscriptions – while very attractive for store owner due to recurring revenues – typically faces the following challenges:

  • Most customers hate subscriptions as it creates extra work for them to monitor the subscriptions and it is perceived as an ongoing liability. Also, some store owners intentionally make it very hard to find the cancel button for subscriptions or ask for a written letter for canceling which creates additional administrative work
  • Selling Subscriptions is harder than selling a product because you also have to convince the customer that you are trustworthy and that they can cancel the subscriptions later on without any hassle.
  • Cancellations – Many customers will outright cancel their subscriptions. Once they got the product they needed they first want to test it and also don’t yet know the value a subscription offers. They already got the product and features they want which allows them to solve a problem they have today. They don’t care yet about the future. Cancellations can lead to a heavy administrative burden also in terms of accounting.
  • Pressure to Release New Updates – Once you are selling a subscription you are on the hook to provide the corresponding value in form of new updates, support, or adding new features such as in the case of selling subscriptions for WordPress plugins. However, sometimes developers are sidetracked by other products and fail to update the plugins. In that case, subscribers will realize this and will leave. Therefore, it is also a lot of work and pressure to maintain subscribers.

Monetization Option #2 – Selling Product Updates for Downloads

Whenever you sell a store product, the typical main problem is that there are no recurring revenues since all products are sold only one time. However, when you sell a download item, the advantage is that you actually can still update the item and make it better. However, when you operate an Easy Digital Downloads Store which does not sell subscriptions, the problem is that there is not much incentive for store owners to update their products since the cannot ask for money selling the same product. Here is where EDD Product Versions comes in. What you can offer here is to sell upgrades either at the full or at a discounted price to existing customers.

Selling upgrades has the following advantages compared to selling subscriptions:

  • Selling an upgrade is easier than selling a subscription. No need to sell an ongoing contract, the monetary exposure of the customer is clearly limited to a fixed purchase amount.
  • Clarity of what Value each Upgrade brings. The upgrade must be developed first before it can be sold. Therefore, an upgrade offers a more clear value proposition to the customer as the characteristics and features can be clearly described and shown. It is not anymore just a mere vague promise of receiving updates.
  • Upgrades Target Existing Customers -Selling an upgrade to existing customers is much easier than selling a product to new customers. Your customers already know you and if they like your work, they most likely will buy the upgrade.
  • Lower Price Points than Subscriptions – Selling an upgrade can be offered at a lower price point than what the lifetime costs of a subscription would be, especially compared to selling annual or multi-year subscriptions where the price points are higher.
  • Updating an already existing product is easier than developing a new product. You already know that this product can sell and you also better understand what problem this product can solve for customers.
  • Enhances customer Retention – Who does not like to see that products are getting better and for being a loyal customer you can get a 20% – 30% discount on an upgrade? Selling an update is a great way to offer value to existing customer and in this way helps to retain them or bring them back to your store.

Of course, there are many use cases where subscriptions might be the better choice to monetize your Easy Digital Downloads Webstore. All what we are saying is that in many cases it might actually be worth considering selling updates as it can lead to additional income. EDD Product Versioning offers a great opportunity to obtain additional income for your Easy Digital Downloads Webshop whenever you can’t or don’t want to use subscriptions.

What is Product Versioning Exactly?

In this method of operating your Digital Downloads stores, basically you will store old download files on your system for convenience, develop new versions, and sell it directly to already existing customers.

As there was no easy system available to manage the sale of new product versions, we decided to solve this problem by launching EDD Product Version Plugin.

We have two use cases:

Product Stores – Sell New Versions 

Many customers don’t like to buy subscriptions. However, they would be ready to pay for improvements provided there is a new version of an already existing product available. EDD Product Version Plugin solves this problem by offering a plugin that manages the sale of new versions of a digital product such as a template, an eBook, etc. to already existing customers. 

Subscription Stores – Adding Archive to Downloads

The other use case is offering an archive of old download versions. This can also be useful to a webstore selling subscriptions, such as a WordPress plugin developer. Sometimes customers run into plugin conflicts and need to undo a latest update temporarily. In such cases, the question is always where to find the old plugin version. EDD Product Version plugin allows an option to also show old download versions on the download pages, making it easy for customers to find the full archive of old download versions.

Plugin Key Features

(1) File Version Upgrades

This plugin introduces File Version Upgrades, where you can update your Download Products whenever you can, then sell those new version upgrades to already existing customers, for additional revenue stream. This means we target paying customers to significantly improve the download they previously purchased, a lot more chance to get a sale!

Existing customers for the New Version Upgrades will be notified on their Purchase Receipt Pages where they can directly purchase it.

(2) Archive Old Download Files and Prices

Most digital download stores fail to realize the importance of Storing and Archiving Old Download Files. So why exactly it is important? Download Products such as plugins, themes, codes, snippets and others are prone to compatibility issues and conflicts on your customer websites.

Therefore, you must always store old download files on your website, ready to be downloaded by your customers, in case of problems on their website, and might need to go back one version down to troubleshoot the problem.

This is why our plugin allows for Archiving Old Download Files accessible by previous customers anytime, to be displayed on Purchase Receipt and Downloads History Pages.

(3) Discounts for Existing Customers

Since our plugin introduces the strategy of selling new version upgrades to already existing customers, we also developed a system to offer discounts for purchasing new version upgrades, which will make the offer more attractive to existing customers and push them to purchase the new version.

Here, you can set a default discount percentage to be applied to all existing purchaser of the download products up for new version upgrade.

(4) Product Update Message on the Purchase Receipt Page

Be able to inform existing download customers by adding an Update Message on their Purchase Receipt Pages, notifying for a New Version Update, available for purchase. This serves as a quick, call-to-action, that pushes customer to checkout, and to purchase the new download version.

(5) Version Upgrades Tracking

Our plugin allows you to track Version Upgrades on your website. This is important so you can monitor how download version upgrading strategy is working on your digital downloads store, especially on your revenue flow.

In this tracking, you can see how many customers purchased the upgrade, the amount of discount used on the purchase, number of orders, updates, upgrades and file version downgrades. It also listed down all Customer Version Upgrades for site admins to check.

(6) Improved EDD Purchase Receipt Page

In relation to our plugin, we have decided to develop and improve the default EDD Purchase Receipt page for compatibility purposes. With our plugin enabled on your website, you have the replace the page shortcode to: [ edd_product_versions_receipt ].

The notable changes we added is now you will see the list of old file versions archived and ready to be re-downloaded anytime by users, as well as the notice whenever a new version upgrade is in preparation or is ready for purchase.

(7) New EDD Download History Page

We have developed a new page – EDD Download History Page – that basically list down all Download Files purchased and downloaded. This allows for easy access on all file versions the customer has, downloadable at any time. 

Why should you purchase this plugin?

EDD Product Versions is a very powerful plugin especially needed if you want to improve the monetization strategy of your Easy Digital Downloads stores. Here are the notable reasons why:

  • Sell File Version Upgrades, instead of subscriptions that are very hard to maintain and sell.
  • Archive Old Download Files for customer to easy access and download in case of issues.
  • Retarget Existing Customers which we have a better chance to earn a sale!
  • Improve the Monetization Strategy of your Easy Digital Downloads Webstores as a whole.

FAQs

Why sell version upgrades, instead of subscriptions?

As we have discussed above, subscriptions do not appeal that much to customers as most of them hate paying yearly fees, with no guarantee of any significate product updates.

What plugin do I need to use EDD Product Versions?

You just need Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) Plugin installed and activated on your WordPress website.

Can I use it both for single and multi-vendor webstores?

Yes. Our plugin can be both used for a single-vendor store, as well as for a multi-vendor store, as it is well integrated with the EDD FES Plugin.

Can I bulk create new version updates to all pricing options?

Yes. You can easily create a new version update for all pricing options in one click using our plugin.

How many file versions can I put to archive?

You can put as many old file versions on archived, as you like. So, customers will have easy access to all previous download file versions, ready for download.

Can I know how many customers have purchased an upgrade?

Yes. Using the Version Upgrades Tracking page, site admins can monitor all transactions related to purchasing an upgrade.

Can I give discounts to existing customers when purchasing an upgrade?

Yes. To make your offer appealing to existing customers, you can give out discounts to be applied when trying to purchase a new version upgrade.

Can I create new versions for Bundles?

Yes. Also, in case you update a download included in such a bundle, you also need to define if your bundle points to the old or the new version to that.

How to inform Customers that a new Update is available?

There are two ways to notify customers whenever a new update is available:

a) They can see on the product page and in their purchase history that a new version is available.

b) In EDD, you can extract a list of customers per product and e.g. upload or tag those customers in Mailchimp to send out a newsletter informing them about a new update available.

Purchase this Plugin today!

EDD Product Versions plugin allows you to sell updated versions of your download files to already existing customers or provide your customers with a download archive for your previous customers.

Note: All paid subscriptions below includes the latest plugin version as well as plugin support and updates for 1 one year.

Single Site License

$89/ Year

3 Sites License

$129/ Year

10 Sites License

$209/ Year

Plugin Meta Data

  • Current Version: 1.4.16
  • WordPress: Tested up to Version 6.0.2
  • Easy Digital Downloads: 3.1.0.1

Changelog

Version 1.4.16 – November 27, 2023

* Enhancement: UpsellMaster Plugin Compatibility – Allows to use Discounts from Campaigns. Added new options on the Settings Page.

* Fix: General Fixes

Version 1.4.12 – May 12, 2023

* Fix: Licensing and Plugin Updating Process

* Fix: General Fixes

Version 1.4.11 – March 07, 2023

* Enhancement: The Example Orders popup was changed to retrieve all price IDs purchased (grouped by price ID and amount) on WP-Admin Add/Edit Product Page.

* Enhancement: Automatic chain IDs will be assigned on page load to current price options with empty chain IDs for products with no archived versions, so it’s easy to start adding new versions.

* Enhancement: Now when uploading files, the filename will be used as the Price Option Name (in case it is empty) on the Vendor Dashboard Add/Edit Product Page.

* Fix: General bug fixes

Version 1.4.7 – February 17, 2023

* Enhancement: Introduced new shortcode for Purchase Buttons the https://www.pluginsandsnippets.com/downloads/edd-product-versions/?edd_action=add_to_cart&download_id=26040 and its documentation on the WP-Admin Settings page.

Version 1.4.6 – December 27, 2022

* Enhancement: Allows site admins to open the FES Submission Form in the “Vendor Dashboard” section on the WP-Admin Settings Page.

* Enhancement: Allows site admins to open the FES Submission Form in the “Product Versions” tab of the WP-Admin Vendor Profile Page.

* Enhancement: Showing admin notice that asks to replace the [ edd_receipt ] with the new [ edd_product_versions_receipt ] when using the Fiery theme.

* Enhancement: Discounts are now allowed up to 100% for all users.

* Enhancement: Added “Free Update Message” setting that replaces the “Update Message” setting when the discount is set at 100%.

* Enhancement: Added a disabled “Single Price/Upload” field with a hard-coded value of “No” on the FES Submission Form to make it clear that this only works with multiple-pricing products.

* Enhancement: Layout improvements for the FES Add/Edit Product Page

* Fix: Showing Archived Price Options for vendors that does not have permission to use product versioning when opening an existing product.

* Fix: Layout fixes on the Purchase Receipt Page

* Fix: General bug fixes

Version 1.4.5

* Plugin release

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