Last updated - June 18, 2018
The plugin we are going to review is not for WooCommerce, but for another good eCommerce platform for WordPress – Easy Digital Downloads. Easy Digital Downloads. You can sell any digital product through your site with the help of Easy Digital Downloads and your users can download them. Digital downloads can be anything from software, music, eBooks, image or video files, etc. When it comes to payment options, there are several add-ons for various payment options. However, if you want to accept credit card payments through your Square account, the API Experts plugin is your best available option. In this review, we will take a look at the features of Easy Digital Downloads Square plugin, and go through the configuration procedure.
Advantages of Easy Digital Downloads
It is reputed to be one of the easiest options to sell digital downloads on WordPress. If you are interested in creating a digital downloads store with WooCommerce, here is another article that can help. Before getting into the details of the plugin, let us take a look at why Easy Digital Downloads is considered as a preferred option.
- Quite easy to sell diverse digital products such as plugins, ebooks, music, PDF files, etc.
- A smooth Cart that allows your customers to purchase multiple digital products at the same and checkout easily.
- It gives store owners control on how users can download the purchased files. You can either provide unlimited downloads, or you can restrict downloads based on number of attempts, or a timeline.
- Moreover, it offers great options to track how users are downloading the purchased files. You can view information like the date of download, time, IP address of the downloader, etc.
- Easy Digital Downloads provides detailed reports on your business activities as well. So, it enables you to analyze your strategies and improvise on them.
- If you want to set up discounts or offers on your store, you can easily create interesting options on your store without hassles.
- Quite a large pool of add-ons are available for extending the functionalities of your store.
Square as a payment solution
As you know, Square is getting increasingly popular as a payment solution in the countries that support it. As of now, Square payments are supported in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan. If you are based in any of these countries, you can very well use the Easy Digital Downloads solution to accept payments on your store. With your Square account, the main advantage is that you get an option to accept payments online and offline. Since you are mostly dealing with downloadable products here, mostly you will need only the online options. Here is a quick look at the features of Square.
- Provides you an option to accept payments from all major credit cards.
- Same rate for all the cards.
- Transparent pricing based on the number of transactions on your store, and no hidden charges.
- Safe and secure transactions with complete PCI Compliance and chargeback protection.
- You will receive your earnings in your account within one or two business days.
Now, let’s look at some of the features of this API Experts Plugin that offers Easy Digital Downloads Square integration
Easy Digital Downloads with Square
As there are not many integrations available for Easy Digital Downloads with Square, this plugin will be really interesting for some. Let’s take a look at the features first:
Features of Easy Digital Downloads Square plugin
- Process payments using your Square account, when customers purchase downloadable products from your store.
- View the entire payment history at one place (Square transactions).
- Test your payment gateway with sandbox before going live.
- Option to display Square logo on the front end, so your customers can choose readily if they are comfortable with it.
Requirements to use Easy Digital Downloads with Square
There are some requirements to meet to be able to use this plugin. Here they are:
- You should be using WordPress version 4.4 or higher
- PHP should be version 5.5 or higher.
- Your site should have an SSL certificate set up on it.
- Should have Easy Digital Downloads plugin installed on your site.
- You need to have an active account with Square.
How to get this plugin?
You need to purchase this plugin from API Experts website. A single site license would cost you $59 per year. There is a license for upto 5 sites at $79 per year. If you want to use the plugin for up to 15 sites, you need to spend $149.
Special offer for LearnWoo readers!
You will be able to get a 30% discount on this plugin till July 31st, 2018. Just visit the Deals section on LearnWoo site and scroll down to find “Easy Digital Downloads with Square”. You will find a coupon code, which you can apply while checking out to get the discounted rate.
Setting up the plugin
This plugin is quite easy to set up on your Easy Digital Downloads store. You simply have to install and activate the plugin. Once it is activated, from the plugin settings, you can choose to display Square as a payment option on your store. Let us take a more detailed look on how you can get this plugin up and running.
In the Easy Digital Downloads settings, you need to visit the Payment Settings tab.
Downloads > Settings > Payment Gateways.
Once you activate the plugin, you can see Square as an option in the Payment Gateway tab.
You can also choose to display the icon of Square on the front end by ticking the checkbox below.
Now you will see a dedicated tab for Square under the Payment Gateway tab.
You can enter the Square API keys here to integrate your Square account with Easy Digital Downloads.
First, you have to choose Test or Live mode.
While testing, you can use the test credentials.
However, to be able to accept payments, you need to enter the API keys from your account. You can find these from your Square account settings. The required fields are Live Application ID, Live Token and Live Location ID.
On the frontend, your users can see an option to make payment through Square on the Checkout page. They can choose by selecting the radio button for Square, if they prefer it to make the transaction. If they select Square as their payment option, they can then process to enter the credit card details and complete the transaction.
Finding the payment history
You can find the payment history of your site at Downloads > Payment History.
Under a specific payment screen, you can see a Payment Meta section on the bottom right. Here you will see the payment type and the Transaction ID.
That’s it! the setting up process of the plugin is quite an easy one. You can start accepting payments on your Easy Digital Downloads store via Square.
What we think about the plugin?
Easy Digital Downloads Square integration is a unique prospect for those who run businesses on their WordPress site. Both are really good solutions in its category and have their own fan following. The API Experts plugin, ‘Easy Digital Downloads with Square’ would be a really handy option for those who want to get the best of both worlds. The setting up and configuration of the plugin is quite simple, and seasoned users of Easy Digital Downloads would find it intuitive too. If your preferred eCommerce platform is Easy Digital Downloads, and you like Square payment option, look no further to integrate both.
Factors to consider while choosing a payment solution
Before concluding, let’s quickly do a recap of some of the factors to consider while choosing a payment option. You can read our article on choosing the right payment option for WooCommerce here.
Security
Security is among the top concerns of any eCommerce store owner. And, it becomes more important when you talk about payment gateways. Credit card frauds are quite rampant and merchants are particularly vulnerable to frauds. One aspect you can ensure is the payment gateway solution has level one compliance of PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). A payment solution like Square would ensure the complete PCI compliance as you don’t need to worry about it even if yours is a small business.
Integration with your eCommerce platform
A seamless integration of the payment gateway to your eCommerce platform is another important aspect that you need to consider. The payment gateway that you choose should ensure your customers are able to checkout of your site quite smoothly. You can find some of the best payment gateway extensions for WooCommerce here.
Redirect or not
Some payment gateways redirect your customers to their servers for the transaction, and some doesn’t. This is a matter that you need to choose based on your understanding of customer preferences. Certain customer base prefer the secure interface of the payment service provider. Whereas, there are quite a few people who would think that a redirection is sort of a hindrance to the checkout flow. If you are choosing an option without redirect, you have to ensure your site is secure enough.
Charges
You need to carefully review the charging terms of your payment service provider. It is important to choose a payment service provider that doesn’t have any hidden charges. For example, Square offers a transparent charging process where you are charged based on your transactions. There are no hidden fees or recurring charges that you need to be worried about. Stripe is another option that you can try out, read more here.
Payout frequency
Another important factor that you need to check before picking up a payment service provider is their frequency of your payouts. You need to choose a payment option that would deposit your earnings in your account as soon as possible. Again, Square can be a great option as you will find your revenue payout in one or two business days.
Conclusion
The choice of payment gateway is an important aspect that determines the success of your online store. Your payment gateway should integrate well with your eCommerce platform as well. In this review we have introduced to you a plugin that seamlessly integrates Easy Digital Downloads and Square. It is a unique solution, as you won’t find other solutions that would help you combine the two. In fact, it is quite easy to install and configure too. Please let us know how you find this plugin, if you have recently installed it. Meanwhile, you can find a good offer to purchase this plugin in our Deals section.
