Fusing Factory review for Fileflare Digital Downloads

Feb. 5, 2024

I make my living selling ebooks and have for over a decade. I also managed software product managers and developers at Dell for many years. When I decided to move to Shopify finding the right platform for handling ebook delivery - both for me and my customers - was paramount. I looked at ALL of the download apps and installed many as trials. It came down to DDA or Sky Pilot. Both are robust and both provided top notch support. In the end I went with DDA because 1) they had a critical feature that Sky Pilot lacked 2) once I understood why Sky Pilot lacked the feature it made it even clearer that DDA was a better choice for me and 3) Sky Pilot charges for bandwidth, DDA does not. The missing feature was on-demand stamping. Sky Pilot cannot do on-demand stamping. They stamp the book and then save it for future downloads. That means 1) if your stamping changes or if you update the books you need to restamp every past sale you made and resave it. And, because Sky Pilot charges for bandwidth going to the AWS server they use, every time you have to update a book with a stamp you have to pay for bandwidth. I suspect they have bandwidth charges from Amazon they need to cover. That means that the fees they charge their customers aren't totally in their control. That's a red flag for me. The fact that Sky Pilot's architecture choices inhibited their ability to deliver what I consider a pretty fundamental feature for digital asset sales also concerned me regarding future capabilities. If you don't need stamping, and bandwidth costs aren't a concern, Sky Pilot (or another app) may be the right choice for you. The person I worked with at Sky Pilot was very responsive and really did try to find a solution for me. They are good people. Their app, though, had insurmountable issues for me. DDA has delivered everything I've needed (and has some things I didn't have on my list but I hope to take advantage of in the future). They continue to be incredibly responsive - always getting back to me very quickly (even when it isn't normal work hours on their end) and they have proactively followed up with me to make sure issues are resolved (seriously - when is that last time that happened?!). I have been nothing but delighted with their solution and their service. Lots of bigger companies could take lessons from them on how to turn customers in to enthusiastic fans. So, ya, five stars - because that's the most Shopify will let me give them.