How purchasing works

Right now there are two ways to purchase with us:

• Major credit card (processed via Stripe)
• PayPal (exception: we do not accept PayPal E-checks for digital purchases)

Here's how our purchasing process works.

Find the item you want to purchase.

Click the "Add to cart" button to put it in your virtual shopping cart. A transaction window will appear showing that the item has been added.

Hovering over the cart symbol in the upper right-hand corner of every page will show you your cart's current contents and offer you the option to amend the contents or start your checkout.

Once you're finished shopping, click on the cart symbol in the upper right-hand corner of any page, and click the "Checkout" button that appears. (Or if you've just added a final item, click on the "Proceed to Checkout" button in that pane.)

Here's what your shopping cart will look like if you open it before checking out.

Clicking "Proceed to Checkout" will bring you to the first step of the process, in which you add any discount code you want to apply to the purchase, Here you'll also tell us the email address to which you want your ebooks sent, and your home or business address. (Since our business is located in Ireland, European Union law regarding digital sales means we need your address to complete the checkout.)

The first window you'll see will look like this.

The prices in your purchase list will show taxes added until you enter a non-EU address when you're providing your address information. If you're making your purchase via PayPal, your address info comes to us from them and there should be nothing else you need to do. You can just click the PayPal button and their secure login window will immediately appear so you can complete your purchase.

If you're a credit card purchaser, use the "Country" dropdown to tell the store where you're located. If you're not in the EU, once you've entered your country, the tax figure will vanish from your purchase price. For EU residents, the store will add VAT at the Irish digital sales rate.

This is also the place to enter your discount code if you've got one. Here's one of our customers entering his code in the "Gift card or discount code" box in the right-hand pane. (Note that Kit hasn't yet changed his address to New York, so taxes are still showing.)

Click the "Apply" button and the store searches its records for the gift card or code, and then applies the appropriate discount or credit to your total. The right hand pane changes to reflect this.

(If a given discount has expired or can't be located from your input, you'll see an error message like the one below. Please check the discount code's  spelling, and also the email that notified you about its conditions and validity dates.)

When that's done, and your address info has been completed, your browser page will look something like this.

At this point, if you like, you can click on the "sign up for our newsletter" box to receive the Ebooks Direct store monthly mailing. Our subscribers receive exclusive discount offers and other interesting perks. (And of course we never share your email info with anyone else.) If you do this, once your order's complete our automated list manager will email you so that you can confirm the subscription.

When your order page is complete and you've clicked the "Continue" button, the store will then take you to the next step.

The next page will give you a chance to review your order. When you're ready, if you want to use PayPal, click on its button and a PayPal secure window will pop up.

The popup will change so that you can input your credit card info. Scroll down to complete the form to your preferences and click "Continue." (If your home currency isn't the US dollar, at this point you'll also be asked to choose a preferred currency for your payment.) PayPal will then finish your payment processing.

If you're using a credit card, put the number and other necessary info into the fields provided for it and click "proceed". The store will take you to a window where Stripe will complete your credit card processing. When the charge has gone through, Stripe will show you a "completed order" page.

Once your credit card info is submitted and the charge has gone through, you'll be redirected to this page at the store, displaying your order details for you one more time. If everything's OK, click "Complete order."

When that's done, the store confirms that your purchase is complete.

The store then emails you to let you know your order has gone through, and passes your email address to FetchApp, the application that sends out ebook files.

And that's how it goes!

ETA: We'll be adding a video version of this walkthrough shortly.)