Having completed a lot of research, and read a lot of sparkling reviews, it appears that aMember is the product that we need. However before purchasing I would like to confirm 2 questions. We own over 1,000 eLearning video titles and want to make them available online using a subscription system. We want to offer the home customer the option of subscribing to either all of the titles, or alternatively one or more of a selection of pre-determined and pre-priced title groupings or selections. The customer will have the choice of subscribing on either a month or annual basis. We would also like to offer the same option to schools, but at different pre-determined pricing options. Question: Will aMember meet our needs as an out-of-the-box solution, or will we require to get modifications made? If so, how extensive are those modifications likely to be? Based on previous sales of our software on CD-ROM in previous years, we anticipate possibly several hundred thousand customers over a period of time. Questions: assuming we have the relevant hardware requirements in place, is aMember sufficiently robust to meet such a volume of customers? Many thanks in advance to anyone taking the time and trouble to answer these two questions. Regards, Nick
Hi Nick, The solution you describe will work out of the box with Amember. I certainly recommend downloading the trial and kicking the tires. That being said: a) Amember supports the notion of groups and a product can be a member of multiple groups. This will allow you to sell and give access to products individually AND in one or many different groups simultaneously. b) You can define different products that provide access to the groups. These products can support one time, month to month, annual and lifetime. You can have separate signup pages (using standard URL parameters or via custom code) to filter the existence of the various types of memberships so you can control who gets what price/duration To your questions: 1) Yes it will work out of the box without any customization (with the exception of styling to match your site and custom signup pages if you do not like the URL (signup.php?group=2) nomenclature) 2) One of my sites has 80,000+ members. I've not personally worked with a membership site using Amember > 100,000. Your indexing and maintenance will be a bit more involved than a 10,000 user site. Also, a big number is also how many of those users are concurrent. Would certainly recommend a Content Delivery Network to manage bandwidth, caching for static pags, etc. Also, I might also suggest cd-fulfillment.com as a fulfillment house for offering your CD-Roms for those that want to continue to have a physical product without you having to maintain inventory. I have one of my sites configured to automate the ordering process via Amember so the users can choose online or physical from the same signup. Out of curiosity, what kind of e-Learning do you provide?
Hello Skippybosco, Many thanks for the detailed reply - your effort really is appreciated. That lulu.com suggestion of yours really sounds like a great idea. You must have been reading my mind because with over 220 CD-ROM titles inventory was really a major problem that I was not even interested to get back into. Sounds like you have gathered a wealth of information that would be very useful to where I am sitting at the moment. The next "headspinner" I am facing at the moment is which streaming service to use. There are so many to choose from, and there is more to consider than just price - although that is an important issue too. Your question about eLearning - it's all K-12 support curriculum content. If you want to know more just email me at nick at zponlinepublishing dot com And a big thanks once again.
Hey Nik. No problem. Actually mis-led you a bit, I use lulu.com for on demand printed books and cd-fulfillent.com (also automated through amember) for on-demand cd and dvd fulfillment. As far as streaming service, do you need a true streaming service or a content delivery network? I have been using Panther Express to deliver audio and video files and have been fairly happy with the set up. It supports: 1) easy setup. essentially just create a subdomain (cache.yourdomain.com or whatever) and you and point it to them. so cache.yourdomain.com\videos\video1.flv caches videos from yourdomain.dom\videos\video1.flv and streams it from whatever content server is closest to your customer. 2) I've got it configured and working with my existing amember security. 3) Supports referrer checking so you can limit hotlinking Let me know if you need more info or want to set up a trial and I can hook you up with the guy I work through.
Hey skippy I need to learn more about these groups! i think that is the feature I might be looking for. Our site offers about 6 different services and until now, we've been including them all in "one" membership option.... but now the boss wants to let people pick and choose which services they have access to a'lacarte (sp?), or in groups of services. Are you referring to Price Groups, or Renewal Groups, or something else entirely? -Scott
Several people here have suggested excellent "third party" web service and/or web-based software. Usually you'll find the information when someone posted the questions online. I would suggest, if possible, we create a seperate "Web-based or Third Party Software Option" under Membership/subscription Service Forum (it's on bottom part of the forum). That way, we could know what's available or what's out there for us to use with aMember. What you guys think? Dave P.S. Pardon for going off the subject in this discussion.