Digital products can be created once and sold repeatedly to different customers without having to replenish inventory, making them ideal for creatives, artists, educators, and freelancers looking for new income streams that require less effort to maintain.
Example Digital Products to Sell
- Educational products like ebooks or courses
- Licenses to use your digital assets
- Membership for access to exclusive digital products
- Digital templates and tools
- Music or art
- Your expertise or services
When creating digital products in Shopify, be sure to uncheck “This is a physical product”.
Both imagery and text often play a different role for digital products compared to physical ones. If the object is not physical, it may be challenging to include suitable images, meaning that greater priority is given to text or embeddable content like audio clips.
Displaying small extra details on an item can make a big difference.
Eg for an ebook, informing customers that the file format supports "Kindle, iBooks, Nook, and most other readers and devices."
For the actual exchange of the digital product, or to allow access to an online course, you will undoubtedly need an app.
Digital Downloads is a free app from Shopify that offers a simple way to sell digital products in your store. Upon purchase, customers can download their file immediately and receive a link in their email.
Other Apps for selling digital products and services
- Sendowl. For more complex digital product businesses, Sendowl comes with a variety of features and useful automation, like expiring links and auto-generated license keys, to power your products.
- Single Music. If you’re a musician selling music on Shopify, Single was made with you in mind. It bridges the gap between physical and digital music sales, and also lets you easily include clips on your product page for customers to sample.
- Thinkific. This app lets you monetize your expertise and grow your audience by adding online courses to your Shopify store. You can upload and drag and drop content to create a course curriculum. A free plan is available allowing you to create up to three courses.
- FetchApp. FetchApp is another digital download delivery app that offers fewer features than Sendowl but has a free plan available (5 MB of storage) and gives you the ability to attach multiple files to a single product.
- Sky Pilot or Bold Memberships. These apps are ideal for building a membership program. You can sell files and exclusive video streams to customers. Customers can then access all of their previously purchased files through their own customer accounts.
- BookThatApp, Tipo, or Sesami. These three apps are perfect for businesses that offer one-to-one or small group interactions and need an appointment booking solution to schedule consultations or coaching sessions with customers. All three apps have a free plan available.
- Recurring Order & Subscription. This is an app for weekly or monthly subscriptions. Use it to automate recurring orders, invoices, and digital subscriptions for online memberships or programs.
Depending on your needs, these apps and more can be used together to help you incorporate digital products into your Shopify store.
Further reading info - How to Create and Sell Digital Products on Shopify