I need to create a large number of “products” for Photo Resizer, but they’re really all just the same product with different prices. And not 2 or 3 prices, but more like 20 or 30 prices. Actually, I’ll likely end up creating more than 30, but that’s a detail.
It may seem strange to some people as to why I would do this. I’ve had people tell me to just set one price and be done with it. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but it also shows a lack of understanding about how to sell software. Just because you’re a rock star coder, doesn’t mean you’re a rock star marketer.
So, what I’m going to cover now are some motivations and reasons for the problem, and how I’m solving it. There are of course other ways to create problems, and other ways to solve them too. 🙂
- Urgency and creating urgency
- The Infralution Licensing System and License Tracker
- The Code: Creating massive numbers of products for the License Tracker database
Urgency and Creating Urgency
When you’re selling, you sometimes need to create a sense of urgency for people to BUY NOW! Not later. Not tomorrow. NOW! Stores do with with 1-day sales, or “on sale until <date>”. The same sort of thing can be done for software. You just tell people that there’s a deal to be had RIGHT NOW, and that if they don’t buy your product RIGHT NOW, then they’re going to miss out.
What happens when you do this is that you effectively remove a barrier to purchase for the customer. They have 1 less reason to “not buy”, and 1 more reason to buy. The more things you can do like this, the better. Typical things include telling potential customers how your product will benefit them and make their lives better, or offer free shipping, or… You get the point.
The way in which I am creating urgency is with an initial steep discount for the product that decreases; that is, the price increases over the course of the trial period. e.g. Today it’s $5 and tomorrow it’s $6, and the day after that… So… BUY NOW and SAVE~! I’ve done it before, and it works.
The Infralution Licensing System and License Tracker
There are lots of ways to license your software, but the one I like is from Infralution. The Infralution Licensing System, or ILS, integrates with their IPN.NET product as well, so it gives me a way to license the software and collect money for it; those are 2 very different things and should not be confused.
ILS includes a program to help keep track of licenses and customers called License Tracker, which up until now I’ve never used. Since I’m looking to automate as much as possible at this stage, I’m moving things over to it now.
License Tracker stores data in a database; I’m using MS SQL Server for that. To add a new product, you simply open up a new form and enter all the data then click OK. Sounds simple enough? Well… Not when you want to add in a truck load of products; it is extremely tedious and painful. I don’t want to copy and paste 500 million times, and I don’t want to change my mind later on and end up copying and pasting another 500 million times.
Since License Tracker is a database-connected application, all data in it is just the data in MS SQL Server. This makes it easy to deal with your data because you can simply connect to the database and do whatever you feel like. As such, I wrote a utility to generate SQL for products, or rather, for product variants, though it could also be used to create top level primary products as well.
My simple “SQL Generator for the Infralution Licensing System License Tracker ” (that’s a mouthful) lets you enter data for a product and generate product variants very quickly. It even lets you increase product costs by a set increment, and lets you auto-increment IPN item numbers. Here’s a screenshot of it (click to zoom):
It’s pretty basic, but it saves product information and settings automatically so that you don’t need to enter everything the next time.
You simply fill in the form and click the “Generate SQL” button. The SQL is then appended to the Generated SQL text box at the bottom of the form. You can automate part of it with the Automatic Increments settings, or quickly change the price manually and click the Generate SQL button again. It’s MUCH faster than copying and pasting for every field.
Now, you do need to know what you are doing, and the “Parent Product ID” needs to be the primary key for the product’s parent in SQL Server, so this isn’t a utility for just anyone to use. However, if you use the Infralution Licensing System and License Tracker, you’ll already be familiar with everything in there, and you won’t have any problems in using it.
Once you have your SQL, you can simply review it to see that it’s what you want and run it in MS SQL Server Management Studio, or whatever you use to execute SQL against MS SQL Server.
After you run your SQL, simply open up License Tracker and all your products will be there.
The Code: Creating Massive Numbers of Products for the License Tracker Database
To make things easier, I’m including the full source code for download here. Please note that I’ve chosen for it to be licensed under the WTFPL 2.0, so you have maximum freedom to “Do What The F*** You Want To”. If you don’t like that license, then feel free to send me lots of money and I’ll give you another license. 😉
Download Source Code for SQL Generator for the Infralution Licensing System License Tracker
The download includes all source code and a debug build that you can run immediately.
The code is commented extensively, so you can consider that the “documentation”. If you have any questions, which I rather doubt anyone will, you can post a reply here. (Also email me to let me know to respond. You can email me through the contact page at http://renegademinds.com.)
I hope that helps someone out.
Cheers,
Ryan
