Shopify helps you sell a wide range of products and services to your customers from all around the world. Along with physical products, Shopify can help you grow your business of selling digital products.
Shopify makes selling digital products to a worldwide customer base possible, and it has never been so easy. In this article, I will talk about digital products and the various types of digital products that can be sold online on Shopify.
Ensure that you read till the end to understand how the entire business works and how you can benefit from the various options that Shopify provides to you as an online seller of digital files. If you are reading this blog for the first time, ensure that you bookmark this link so that you can refer to it at a later stage as well.
Table of contents
What are digital products?
All those products and items that are digitally produced and sold in a digital format are called digital products. These products are sold over the internet and can be just downloaded by the buyer. There is no shipment needed, and there is no physical transaction of products involved.
Digital products can range from simple images and videos to printable planners, calendars, software programs, eBooks, and downloadable guides. We will talk about them later in the article.
Some online stores only sell digital products, and there are several such stores on Shopify as well. Let’s now see how you can get started on Shopify to sell digital files on your Shopify store.
How to get started on selling digital products on Shopify?
You need to understand the basic differences between selling a physical product and selling a digital product on Shopify to get started.
There are some characteristic differences between a physical and a digital product, and hence you need to handle them slightly differently while selling on Shopify. Let’s see the two significant dissimilarities between a material and a digital product.
- No Shipping Needed: digital products do not need to be shipped. Customers can directly download the products from your Shopify store. However, sometimes some customers may want to have a hard copy or a DVD containing the product to be shipped along with it. Other than that, digital products do not need to be shipped.
- No Inventory Tracking: multiple copies of the same non-physical product can be available and sold to numerous customers. Whoever is buying is essentially downloading the same file over and over again. There can be exceptions when the digital product is made available for a limited time or a limited number, as in limited edition products.
- No Manual Processing: order processing can be automated using Shopify’s free app or other third-party software. For digital products, you need not process each order manually. If a considerable quantity of sales goes on every minute, it will be cumbersome to process all orders manually on Shopify.
These two things need to be kept in mind while planning to sell non-physical products on your Shopify store. Now, let’s see what all you can sell on your Shopify store.
What digital products can you sell on Shopify?
If you are reading this article, it may be possible that you already have something in mind which you want to sell on Shopify. Make a comment below the article and tell me what digital product you have planned to sell on Shopify. I would love to see the diversity in the comment section.
While many Shopify stores sell digital files exclusively, many of them also sell digital products that complement their primary products. Do you already know what I am talking about?
Never mind if you have not selected the product yet or have not decided what you want to sell. Let me tell you about a few digital products that you can sell on Shopify. Many of them are already a hit in the digital downloads market. I will list them one by one.
- Digital Books or Guides: one of the most sold online products is digital books and guides. Many people buy guides and books online, and most of those are made available in digital formats. These guides and eBooks can be related to a wide variety of domains, ranging from medical, entrepreneurship, self-help to travel, holidays, and finance. You can create and sell such digital products based on your expertise and passion.
- Product Guides and DIY: if you already sell some physical products online or through the same Shopify store, you may want to add product guides as well, in digital format. These products help eBooks, and do-it-yourself guidebooks can directly impact your physical products’ sales. You can even add video guides with a detailed review of the product you are selling and add those to the products. It is actually up to you whether you want to charge your customers for these value addition or give it away for free to attract more customers.
- Digital files as addons: based on the type of products you sell on your Shopify store, you can choose a few addons that you can deal with in the digital format. For example, sell exercise and health related equipment on your Shopify store. You can probably sell recipe eBooks or various diet-related guidebooks which will add value to your original products. Many clients will love it and may want to buy those additional benefits too.
- Look-books and Styling ideas: you may definitely collate all the various images you may already have related to the various lifestyle products you sell on your Shopify store. These will give ready-made ideas to your customers, and they will simply love it. Most such stores will let the customers have these look-books for free, but even if you want to sell them on your Shopify store, I am sure many will be interested in buying them too.
- Branded Products: if you are very famous with your regular clients and there is some kind of rapport you have built with them, then creating branded digital downloads may be the next step you would take. You may sell branded wallpapers for their mobiles, tablets, desktops, and laptops for nominal fees. Even if you give them away for free, they will help you make your brand popular and eventually get more sales.
- Yearbooks and Planners: These yearbooks and planners are widespread digital products sold online on many Shopify stores. You can also add downloadable daily planners and monthly calendars, which the buyers can just print and hang on their desks. If you make them branded, they will help in promotions as well.
- Print On Demand products: there are innumerable stores on Shopify that sell POD (print on demand) products. These designs are also digital in nature but are ordered based on a physical product. The plan will be printed on the chosen product, like T-shirts, Mugs, Pillows, Caps, and similar products, and shipped to the buyer. Although selling POD designs will need separate and exclusive coverage, I can only suggest that it is still one of the most predominantly sold digital downloads online. You will have to partner with printing companies, such as Printful, and get your orders printed, packaged, and shipped to the buyers. I will talk about that in some other article with more details.
So, these are the various ideas of digital products that you can sell on your Shopify store. If you can think of any other major products that I may have missed, please mention them in your comments below.
How to create digital products?
Now that you have decided what to sell on your Shopify store, creating those digital products is the next question. Let me tell you in short how you can make these digitals.
- DIY: if you have the required skills of creating digital products that you are looking to sell, you can very well do it yourself. That is the best and cost-effective way of doing business. Many people are creating their own digital downloads and selling them on their Shopify stores as well. Doing it yourself is going to be very fulfilling and highly satisfactory as well.
- Get it done: you can also hire someone to get the products created for you if you do not intend to make them yourself. Obviously, it will need some kind of initial investment, but it is definitely worth it.
- Buy digital products: you can buy digitals you like from other sellers or creators and sell them after adding some value. It is not very uncommon, and a lot of people actually do that on their Shopify store. You can do it too!
This brings us to the end of this article, where we have talked about selling digital downloads on Shopify. We have talked about what digital products are, how to get started, what products you can sell, and how to have digital products. If you are interested to you can hire a web developer in dubai.
I hope that the concepts are clear now. If you have any queries, please feel free to ask in the comments below. I will be thrilled to answer those.
Until next time, cheers!
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