Hi
CBSubs, it's a confusing and perhaps over-complicated thing and after much time and testing I'm not sure it can do what I want which seems simple enough for software that otherwise successfully helps people securely sell things.

I have installed CBSubs and trawled the manual and forums but I'm on the verge of giving up despite having just one week left to please my client. I would be grateful to anyone if they could tell me if what I want to do is at all possible or if there's a better solution.

Quite simply I have a number of PDF's currently in DocMan, so far the site has signed up 200+ users via CB and we have successfully given away many sample PDF's.

Now we want to be able to offer for paid download a variable number of new PDF's depending on a discounted price structure, e.g. 1 for £10, 2 for 10% off, 3 for 20% off and so on. Even a buy two get one free system would do but I can find no way of doing so. I found a forum post that suggested a possible way to do this, see here but it gives no clue as to the next part of the problem as follows:

The main problem however is that the purchaser needs to be able to select their choices of PDF's from the full list. I cannot find a way to do this. There seems to be no way of setting options to pay variable amounts according to quantity or have a list of selectable items that could go into a shopping cart and have a discount applied at point of purchase.

The free sample PDF's still need to exist and the paid PDF downloads are a non-expiring licensable product so the ability to pay for additional licenses for the same PDF ideally needs to be incorporated but we could live without that for now if needs be.

I would welcome any suggestions as to how I might achieve something similar to what I have in mind, and to be honest, quite a simple thing to expect CBSubs to do seeing it has all the other payments and systems in place.

Due to the shear number of possible combinations of PDF choices it would be an impossible task to set predefined plans or packages of PDF's for download with a price for each.

Another thing I was hoping to see was the possibility of voucher/coupon discount codes that could be entered. I understand this is not due for a release until v1.2 of CBSubs which is presumably a long way off as v1.1 hasn't happened yet.

I've a feeling I still haven't properly got my head around the way Joomla, Docman, CB & CBSubs properly works and integrates so if I'm missing something really obvious I apologise. I understand CBSubs cannot add features to DocMan, but it's the simple product selection and payment structure systems of CBSubs that seems to have me stumped, otherwise, from the free version of our site everything works well and looks good.

Has anyone any ideas as to how to get this going or any suggested alternatives to get PayPal and mailed payments to sell PDFs securely. I have to get this site up and running by the 13 Sept (2010!).

Thank you for that reply. I had come to the same conclusion that I should try Virtuemart and I plan on giving it a go later today.

I think what is confusing is that CBSubs enables payments and can provide packages of things to sell and even specify prices. It mentions baskets, merchandise and all the sorts of things that indicate a shop-like experience but in reality it's best/only ability is in providing subscription access to things as a package rather than a pick and mix approach.

It's taken me a fair while to realise what CBSubs can and cannot actually provide and I hope adding Virtuemart to CBSubs and the already existing DocMan doesn't get too confusing and convoluted.

Thanks again for your advice.

Post edited by: mrartist, at: 2010/09/06 17:53