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| Going round in circles - trying to download to no avail |
I've become a big fan of digital downloads of books and magazines - but while iTunes and Amazon work fine for me (and sync between my Mac and iPad beautifully) it is possible to encounter difficulties when trying to buy/download from suppliers who are less well attuned to digital downloads.
Art Magazines from North Light Shop
I used to subscribe to various American Art Magazines but gradually got fed up by the time they took to arrive and the cost relative to the content - given the amount of content available for free online which was of comparable quality.
The other major problem was the massive postage cost for international customers which made a journal which is available for a reasonable cost in the USA a very expensive proposition when buying as an overseas customer.
It's a challenge that a lot of publishers of journals and magazines face. It's also a challenge which must be losing them custom and customers.
One of the delights of the Internet is that it is now possible to order individual copies of magazines as digital downloads. That means I can get a copy as soon as the magazine is published. It's all very fast - see/buy/download/receive. The admin process is extremely speedy on other sites. The only time I have to wait is the time to receive the download.
This is why some of the publishers of art magazines now make digital downloads available from their website stores.
Which is fine - so long as they work!
This is the story of trying to buy the April 2011 copy of the Pastel Journal which has the Pastel 100 winners in it.
It was always a copy I looked forward to getting and I'm very happy to try and download a digital copy for $7.99 (although I would expect the publishers to realise at some point that they will achieve a lot more sales when they start relating the digital file to cost ie there are no paper or printing costs involved with a digital file)
This is the process I followed - which ended up in this blog post.
- Read Pastel Journal Blog - see article about the Pastel Journal 100 edition and click the link to the 12th annual Pastel 100 competition
- Arrive at North Light Store
- Bonus: I note the following This item does not have shipping or handling fees, but does count toward your order total to receive free shipping on other products.
- Realise I need to set up an account and do so. Get rather irritated by an antiquated American ecommerce system which assumes all international addresses work in exactly the same way as American ones. It's something I've seen a lot of in the past but much less so nowadays hence the irritation at having to make "England" a province. It's a country!
- Click through the North Light website menu to get to the Pastel Journal and choose the digital download option for the Pastel Journal 100 issue (April 2011)
- Next I click the link and.......
- Billing information has been automatically inserted
- Just the payment information to complete (what a pity they don't offer Paypal which is used by soooooooo many people these days for international payments)
- see the shipping information but do not complete this as they don't need it, the digital download is coming to my computer. It's not a CD coming to my B&M address
- HOWEVER I do note that there is no option for "digital download" in the shipping information! Which seems very odd to say the least
- Odd that is until I press "continue"
- The next thing I get is a screen demanding that I complete a shipping address. This states the following
Invalid First Name For Shipping Address
Invalid Last Name For Shipping Address
Invalid Shipping Address 1
Invalid City For Shipping Address
Invalid Postal Code for Shipping Address
Invalid Ship Country
- So now I wonder what to do - which is never a situation I like to be in when in the middle of a transaction on a secure website
- I try choosing default and that loads my home address and announces that it's going to send me my digital download as "international printed matter"
- I try the same process twice more with identical result. Nope I didn't do anything wrong. The system running on the North Light Store does not appear to be one which can cope with digital downloads of files! Either that or somebody forgot to ask the webmaster to include instructions specifically for digital download customers.
- This is the point at which I begin to "lose it" and......
- Start this blog post instead. I give up!
So - a question for you
Has anybody SUCCESSFULLY downloaded a digital file to an international address from the North Light Store?
- If so, what did you do? Did it arrive as a digital download?
- If not, why not? Plus what did you next?
