Sell Digital Products Online

Selling digital products online allows you to reach a global audience with minimal overhead costs. You can create and distribute items like e-books, software, online courses, and digital art instantly, offering customers instant gratification. This model leverages the power of automation and digital delivery platforms, making it a scalable and efficient way to generate income and share your expertise or creativity.

The Ubiquity of Digital Products

Whether you’re aware of it or not, digital products are part of your everyday life. From video games and audiobooks to online classes and digital marketing tools, intangible goods can be bought and sold online. For artists, freelancers, and bloggers, digital products offer an ideal avenue for passive income, eliminating concerns about inventory, shipping, packaging, or logistics. Create a digital product once and watch the sales grow.

If you’re an entrepreneur skilled in online sales, exploring the digital product market could be a lucrative opportunity. This guide covers popular digital products, where to sell them, and how to launch your online business.

. 

Physical Products vs. Digital Products

A digital product is any intangible good or service that can be created once and sold repeatedly online. Unlike physical items, which require constant reproduction and replenishment, digital products allow merchants to focus on product improvement rather than manufacturing more items. Digital products can be templates, tools, online classes, or downloadable items like printable artwork, music, or infographics. Your business doesn’t have to focus solely on digital products; you can also complement your existing physical goods with digital offerings.

Profitable Digital Product Ideas to Sell Online

First things first, you’ll need to figure out what to sell. Digital products may sound like a niche market, but there are actually tons of options out there. Here are five different types of digital products to get your wheels turning.

1. Online Courses and Educational Products.

Gone are the days when learning required a classroom. With e-learning platforms like Coursera and SkillShare, you can learn anything, anywhere. If you have a unique skill or passion, turn your knowledge into an online business with webinars, downloadable tutorials, or an online course.

Example: BigCommerce merchant ACLS offers online courses for medical certifications along with practice tests, articles, and videos.

Monetize your knowledge through podcasts and e-books. The number of podcast listeners is expected to reach 164 million by 2024, and the e-publishing sector is predicted to have 1.6 billion readers by 2025. Platforms like Spotify, Audible, Amazon Kindle, and Scribd make it easy to host podcasts or self-publish books.

2. Licenses for digital assets.

Licensed digital assets allow individuals and businesses to pay to use someone else’s digital property, such as stock photos, WordPress themes, infographics, or video footage. Creators can charge for the use of these assets through their online store and other marketplaces like stock photography sites and Canva. However, be aware that some platforms may take a commission from each sale. Tools like SendOwl can help manage digital product businesses and auto-generate unique license keys.

3. Music and art.

If you’re a musician or artist, consider selling your digital creations. Musicians can sell song snippets as ringtones or entire albums online. Graphic designers can sell digital art like wallpapers, printable cards, or posters on platforms like Etsy or Society6, or create their own storefront.

4. Digital tools and templates.

 

Professionals often lack the time or resources for all their business tasks. This is where digital tools and templates come in, offering solutions to make daily tasks easier. Examples include plugins, filters, presets for media editors, digital media planners, business mobile apps, graphic design templates, fonts, logos, icons, and UX kits.

Example: GameDay offers an app for organizing athletic competitions, tournaments, and events.

5. Memberships.

 

Bundle multiple products and services together and offer them to customers on a recurring basis. Membership sites are perfect for expanding your digital product offerings and maintaining a community of loyal customers. Members can access exclusive deals, discounts, and content.

Example: GameDay offers three different membership options for bundling various products and services.

 

Finding the Right Platform for Digital Goods

Once you’ve decided on a digital product, finding the right platform to sell it is crucial. With over 7.1 million ecommerce sites available in 2020, the choices are vast.

Hint: BigCommerce is highly recommended.

BigCommerce offers essential features for launching your digital product and growing your business. Here are some features to look for in an ecommerce platform:

 

1. Digital storage.

Find a platform with ample storage for your digital files. Unlimited storage is ideal, but many platforms charge based on storage needs. BigCommerce offers unlimited bandwidth and large file support, eliminating storage concerns

2. Shopping cart.

A seamless checkout process is crucial, as 69.8% of shoppers abandon carts. An efficient checkout design can increase conversion rates. Look for minimal steps, no popups, few distractions, and a clear navigation design. “Guest Checkout” options and keeping the checkout process on your site are additional benefits

3. Integrations with top payment gateways.

Offer a variety of payment gateways to accommodate all customers. BigCommerce supports over 65 pre-integrated payment solutions, covering 230 countries and 140 currencies, including Apple Pay, Adyen, Visa Checkout, and Amazon Pay.

4. No hidden transaction fees.

Beware of platforms with hidden fees. BigCommerce merchants don’t face hidden transaction fees, regardless of their chosen credit card provider.

How to Sell Digital Products for Online Stores

If you have a business idea but need guidance, here’s a six-step process to launch your digital product and ecommerce business:

1. Brainstorm and research.

This is your time to get the creative juices flowing. Put pen to paper and write down every digital product idea you have — the good and the bad. 
Don’t overthink it. Even if your first idea isn’t your best one, it’ll help get you on the right track and hopefully lead to your eureka moment. 
What are you passionate about? If you were to give a TED Talk, what would it be about? If you already have a business, what digital products could potentially complement your existing physical products? Are there specific pain points that you can solve for your customers?
These are just some questions to help get the ball rolling and guide you in the right direction. 
Next, you’ll want to do some research to find out what potential customers are looking for online. You may already have a stellar business idea, but if not, seeing what other people are selling might help you find your niche. Below are some good resources to help you get started with your research:    
Reddit subreddits.
Facebook Groups.
Product reviews.
Customer surveys.
Industry forums. 
Blog posts and comments.

2. Validate your idea.

Before diving headfirst into creating and selling a digital product, it’s best to validate your idea and make sure it has potential. It would be a shame to invest time and resources into a business idea only to find out later that it was destined to fail. 
Here are some ways to make sure your digital product idea is set up for success:
Google’s Keyword Planner: Keyword tools can show you how many people are actually searching for topics or terms related to your product. If there’s a low search volume, perhaps this is a sign that your product will be too niche or not popular enough, but if there’s a high search volume, this might be validation that you’re on the right track. 
Google Trends: To ensure there’s demand for your product idea, you can use Google Trends to search for topics with a growing opportunity size.
Feedback: Perhaps one of the most beneficial things you can do is directly reach out to your target audience and ask for honest feedback. After all, they’re the ones who are going to make your business thrive or fade.

3. Find a target market.

Now it’s time to define your target audience. 
While it may be tempting to try to reach everyone with your product, the reality is that targeting everynone means targeting no one. By specifying your target market, you’ll be able to cater your digital products, as well as your marketing and communications, to the needs of your customers. In the end, this will provide them with greater value and a more compelling message.
Zone in on your target market and discover all you can about them, from their geographies to their interest to their occupations. Becoming an expert in your niche will give you a leg up and help you stand out from the competition.

4. Build your online store.

Once you’ve turned your idea into a tangible product, it’s time to get it out into the world —  and one of the best ways to do so is with an online store. 
We’ll go more in depth on this in the next section, but long story short: BigCommerce is your best bet for hosting a top-notch ecommerce website. With the flexibility and functionality of open SaaS, BigCommerce is based on low total cost of ownership and highly flexible APIs, allowing you to build, innovate and grow your business.

5. Increase and drive traffic.

But just creating an online store doesn’t guarantee success — you’ll need to optimize your website to drive traffic and increase sales.
Here are some examples of marketing tactics that can help get you on your way: 
Search engine optimization (SEO): Optimize your site by incorporating relevant keywords, decreasing page load speed and mapping out your website structure. This will help you to rank higher on Google and other search engines and hopefully increase the chances of your page being found.  
Influencer and blogger outreach: Considering 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations when making a purchase, influencer marketing is a tactic that shouldn’t be overlooked. Partner with influencers and bloggers with established reputations to get your content promoted and reach new audiences.
Affiliate programs: Affiliate marketing can be a significant way to drive traffic and increase sales, so try incentivizing third-party businesses or influencers to promote your digital products in exchange for a commission for each sale.
Offer a lead magnet: A lead magnet is a free product or service in exchange for a potential customer’s contact information, such as an email address or phone number. Offering your product for free in the beginning not only establishes trust between you and the customer, but it also gives you the opportunity to upsell or retarget customers with future promotions or discounts.
Benefits of Selling Digital Products
You may have already caught on to some of the advantages of selling digital products, and perhaps you’ve already hopped onboard. But if you’re not yet convinced about incorporating digital products into your business, here are a few benefits to consider:
**Flexibility:**Since you don’t have to worry about restocking inventory or packaging and shipping, you have the freedom to create new products or adapt existing ones — however and whenever you want.
High profit margins: Adding onto the previous point, no inventory or shipping costs means higher profit margins. You can sell as many of the same products as you want, with little to no additional cost on your end.
Efficiency: Without the need to package and ship products, you can save time on operations and logistics, and you can save money on sourcing, storage and other overhead costs.
Scalability: The beauty of digital products is that you can create one great product and sell it as many times as you can. You may start out at 10 units in a day, but even if you scale to 1,000 units in a day, the only thing that will change on your end is how many sales you’re making. But of course, as your business grows, you may need to consider hiring additional customer service representatives to help support the growing traffic.

Tips for Selling Digital Products online

Now that you’re set up with your product, platform and plan-of-action, here are some final tips on selling digital products online and the best channels for marketing them.

1. Email subscribers.

One of the best ways to drive traffic to your online store is through email marketing. By building relationships with leads and giving them personalized recommendations and content, you’ll be able to nurture potential customers into loyal, paying customers.
This all goes back to your lead magnet. 
Although we already touched on this, it’s worth noting again. A lead magnet isn’t simply a “Subscribe to Our Email List” popup — it’s a free offer of a product or service that will encourage potential customers to share their contact information with you. If you’re selling an e-book, give them a free download of the first chapter. This will give them a taste of how good your product is and make them want to come back for more.

2. Social media marketing.

With social commerce making headway and the number of social media users growing by the year, this one might seem like a no-brainer.
But many of the most successful ecommerce businesses are the ones that adopt a strong omnichannel strategy. This means that all channels, both online and offline, should weave together to create a seamless experience for the customer — and leveraging social media marketing is a primary way to achieve this.   
To bolster customer loyalty, make sure you’re creating engaging, relevant content that will actually resonate with your target audience. But don’t feel like you always have to be creating brand new content 24/7 — this can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. So don’t be afraid to repurpose and reuse existing content, or even try changing its format and distributing it across other social platforms.
Plus, you can use social media to reinforce your sales cycle. With an increase of social commerce functionalities on multiple social platforms, there are so many opportunities to get creative with how you’re selling online. 
Try incorporating ads on social media, one-click checkout or product widgets in your Stories to make the buying process more efficient. The less steps the customer has to take to complete a purchase, the better.

3. Third-party websites.

Luckily, with the digital goods market becoming increasingly popular, there are so many tools available to help make your life easier. From selling music to online courses to videos