Using the Accept Stripe Payments plugin, a website owner can easily sell both physical and digital products to their customers. If you intend on selling a large number of digital files, you may prefer to store some of the files on Google Drive.
In this tutorial, we will look at how a digital product that is stored on Google Drive can be inserted into the product creation page of the Stripe payments plugin so that prospective customers receive their digital download after a transaction is complete.
Step 1: Prepare Your Digital Asset to Get Started
Ensure that your digital product is compressed into a ZIP file. You can do this by placing all the files you want to offer within a designated folder on your computer. Then, compress the folder using the ZIP format. This compressed ZIP file will be used as the downloadable file for your product.
Step 2: Obtain the Google Drive Shareable Link
Upload the compressed ZIP file to your Google Drive account. Once uploaded, right-click on the file within your Google Drive and select the option to “Get Link.” In the popup window, click on the “Copy link” button to obtain the shareable link for your Google Drive file. Save this link in a notepad or similar tool for later use.
Step 3: Find the File ID Next
Extract the file ID from the Google Drive shareable link. Locate the string of characters between “/d/” and “/view” in the link. For example, if your link is:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gu1x8AFgYewjrWVvRCIJ7ftEN1GQGG3m/view
The file ID would be the following:
1gu1x8AFgYewjrWVvRCIJ7ftEN1GQGG3m
Step 4: Convert the Shareable Link Format Now
Convert the Google Drive shareable link into the following format:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=<ID>&export=download
Replace “<ID>” with the actual file ID you obtained in Step 3. The converted file link should look like this:
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1gu1x8AFgYewjrWVvRCIJ7ftEN1GQGG3m&export=download.
Step 5: Configure the Product in Stripe Payments
After uploading your digital content to Google Drive and generating the download link in Steps 3 and 4, you can proceed to create your product in the Stripe Payments plugin. In the product creation page of the plugin, locate the “Download URL” field. Insert the Google Drive download link you obtained in Step 4 into this field. Fill out the remaining details on the product creation page according to your preferences. Finally, click on the “Publish” button to make the product available for sale.
Once a customer purchases your product, they can download the file immediately by using the download link provided by the Stripe Payments plugin. The customer will unknowingly download the product directly from your Google Drive, as it will be packaged in a compressed ZIP folder.