Cerizmo Blog

The Cerizmo Store Directory is a listing of some of the many merchants selling with Cerizmo. For our merchants, it provides additional exposure and a free link to the store. For buyers, it showcases some of the available stores that are selling digital downloads.

You can view the store directory at http://directory.cerizmo.com/

Want to get listed in the Cerizmo Store Directory?

1. Sign up for a Cerizmo account

2. Create at least one item

3. Go to Settings and check List Store in Directory. Make sure to set a store name and description as well.

Remember, you must opt-in to have your store listed, and you must be selling at least one item.

One of the main goals for Cerizmo is reliable download delivery. When your customer purchases your items, they need fast and complete delivery of downloads. It needs to work every time.

Today we have made some significant changes to the way the server delivers these file downloads. The changes will greatly enhance reliability and speed for downloads, especially for large files.

The changes are automatic and do not require you to do anything. You will not need to re-upload any files or make any changes.

If you have any customers who were having difficulty downloading their purchased items (especially when those contained very large files), you can reset their download pages by going to Store > Download Pages in your control panel, and clicking the reset link next to the download page. This will reset the expiration date, allowing them to download again.

We are pleased to announce multi-currency support for Cerizmo. The update went live this afternoon and was seamless.

You may now sell your products in any of the following currencies:

• United States Dollar (USD)
• Great Britain Pound (GBP)
• Euro (EUR)
• Canadian Dollar (CAD)
• Australian Dollar (AUD)
• New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
• Swiss Franc (CHF)

In addition to multi-currency support, the latest update also included the following enhancements:

• Basic sales statistics for individual items (go to Show Item to view them)
• Orders listed on the customer page will now display items ordered and quantity

We take very seriously the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data. After all, it not only directly affects your sales, but it is also your intellectual property.

In addition to our rigorous security policy (which includes system audits, intrusion detection, and modern firewalls), we also employ a safe data backup procedure.

We have been performing hourly backups in the past to two locations in the United States. But we felt it just wasn’t enough - so we added a new fully encrypted Raid-6 remote filesystem located in Switzerland.

We are now performing hourly backups to the following:

• A local system - for fastest restoration in case of file integrity issues
• A remote Storage Area Network - highly available, redundant storage for reliability and fast restoration.
• *NEW* Encrypted, Raid-6 remote file system located in Switzerland

Did you know that many software-as-a-service providers do not perform remote backups? They complain that it’s too expensive, or they claim their filesystems will never fail. We feel that you can never be too safe.

What is it?

Cerizmo is an e-commerce system designed for selling digital goods (anything that can be downloaded). It allows you to sell files of all kinds: software, ebooks, screencasts, templates, digital artwork, documents, forms, and more.

It provides everything you need to start selling - a customizable online store, a control panel to manage it, payment integration, and automatic delivery of downloads to your customers. There’s no software to install or configure - we manage everything on our servers.

Why was it created?

Cerizmo was created out of a need. Our team had years of experience selling digital products, but were constantly disappointed by existing systems. They seemed to lack important features, they didn’t answer the tough questions, and they weren’t streamlined. And most of all, they just weren’t reliable - download delivery needs to work every time and be even more reliable than shipping tangible products.

We had used many systems in the past, which mainly fell into three categories:

• Bloated e-commerce software designed to do it all, with digital goods being added on as an afterthought. Since many features related to tangible goods don’t apply to digital goods, the systems just didn’t work together well.

• Digital goods software that lacked key features. What if you need to bundle multiple downloads on one product? What if simple “buy now” links just aren’t enough, and you need your own storefront? They didn’t solve these problems. Worst of all, many of them processed payments with their own merchant accounts, which means you have to wait several weeks for payout.

• Self-hosted systems that were difficult to install and maintain. They required us to run our own servers, install complex software, and manage our own updates.

With the digital goods market growing so fast, we were surprised that there were so few options for selling and delivering these types of products. So we set out to create the solution.

How is it different?

Our system is designed from the ground up to be the most efficient way to sell digital products. This is not a bloated e-commerce system with a digital goods add-on thrown in as an afterthought - it’s a system fully streamlined to sell digital products only.

We focus on several main areas:

Reliable Digital Delivery
This means your customer is automatically redirected to the downloads after a purchase, in addition to receiving an email with a secure link to access this page later.

Streamlined Ordering Process
We use a one-page checkout process that asks only for an email and password, then forwards the customer directly to the payment processor. Complex, multi-step checkout processes (common in shopping cart systems) only result in lost sales - the users become impatient and don’t complete the purchase. We want to avoid this however possible.

Complete Storefront
Most digital goods systems only give you “Buy Now” links for doing a direct purchase from an external site. We give you a complete customizable store front with item listings, shopping cart, and checkout. It’s perfect if you sell many items, or if you just want to look more professional.

Powerful Merchant Control Panel
We want to give the merchant as much control over the store as possible. We believe our web-based control panel (available free to every merchant) is the most powerful and easiest to use on the market. With it, you can control and customize every aspect of your store, view sales details and statistics, and view customer information.

Instant Payout to the Merchant
You use your own merchant account - so when you make a sale, you get the money instantly. In addition to that, your customers see your company name on the receipt (not ours), so it’s all private label.

100% Private Label
There’s no “powered by” or copyright notices displayed on your store, and you use your own merchant account. It’s all as private as running your own in-house system (except you don’t have to hassle with that).

Fully Managed
We host it all on our servers. There’s no software to install or update, no servers to manage.

Conclusion

We answered the tough questions. We paid attention to the details. If you’re using another system, we believe you can sell more with ours. If you’re just considering getting into the digital goods business - here’s your solution for delivering the products.