Digital products are a great choice to build an online business around. They are more appealing than traditional physical retail businesses for many reasons. Selling digital products online offers more flexibility, better profit margins and less effort to maintain.
In this post we’ll be looking at some ideas for selling digital products online, including 15 types of digital downloads you could start selling. These are ideal to operate as standalone businesses or an additional income source for bloggers and freelancers.
What Are Digital Products?
Digital products are electronic items stored in a digital format that can be easily sold or accessed over the internet. Examples of popular types of products that are in digital format include items such as e-books, software, and online courses.
The benefits of selling digital products online include no inventory, no shipping costs, and a global market. They offer more advantages over selling physical products and could be a great way to create passive income streams.
Passive income is an income source that once set up will continue to generate income without any further effort. It means you could literally make money while you sleep.
Selling Digital Products Online Vs Physical Products
There are many advantages to selling digital products online rather than physical products including;
- Greater flexibility.
- Higher profit margins.
- More scalability.
- No physical premises or inventory required.
- No shipping costs.
- More opportunities in a global marketplace.
- Potential for automation.
The downside to selling digital products online is that there is often increasing competition in many markets as more and more people switch to selling digital goods.
How And Where To Sell Digital Products Online
Operating in the digital space means there are many opportunities and many outlets available to sell products and services. Where to sell digital products online depends on the type of products you are selling, your experience, skill level and budget.
There are lots of eCommerce platforms to explore. From general online marketplaces such as Amazon to more specialist marketplaces that cater to a particular niche or product. Then there are also plenty of digital freelancing platforms where you can sell digital services.
Some eCommerce platforms like Shopify provide a simple and convenient way for people get their businesses up and running quickly. One thing to watch out for with eCommerce platforms is the fees. You may also have more limited control over your website or storefront such as it’s design and functionality.
Often the best and more cost effective option is by creating your own website on platforms such as WordPress. This way you have full control over everything from design to keeping fees at a minimum.
Whichever options you choose for selling digital products online you will still need to ensure you market effectively.
What Digital Products Can I Sell?
We know there are many potential benefits to selling digital downloads online but you may now be asking the question, what digital products can I sell? You have 2 main options – create a product or service of your own to sell online or re-sell existing products. Below is a list of 15 ideas of digital products to sell online.
Photos
There is a huge demand for new and unique stock photography. Businesses and individuals require new images for use in all their digital content including web pages and digital marketing. They may also be required for printed publications such as; books, magazines and sales brochures.
Photographers are able to sell photos directly to stock photography sites like Shutterstock for which commission payments are received. Or alternatively you could set up your own website selling your images directly. This way you will get to keep all of the profits.
There are many more options than just selling your digital images. You could sell physical prints or even apply them to other products to sell. A popular option for this is a print on demand store.
Discover the 10 key benefits of a print on demand business
eBooks
eBooks are among the most popular digital products to sell as they are able to be produced relatively quickly and cheaply. They are very easy to sell through many different outlets including Amazon, your own website and other digital download platforms.
As well as being sold for profit, eBooks can also be an effective way of generating leads. They are often given away as a free gift as a way of capturing user information such as free email sign ups.
The great thing about eBooks is that they can be written on any topic or niche. So anybody should be able to crate one in an area they are knowledgeable about. At it’s most basic an eBook could be in the form of a simple written PDF file. However if you are going to be selling them then they need to be presented more professionally. There are lots of software programs that make the creation process easy such as Sqribble.
You’ll likely have more success by creating new and unique eBooks. If you don’t want to create your own there’s plenty of free PLR products you can re-sell.
Audiobooks
If you are a creator of eBooks or written content you could earn more passive income by publishing your work as an audiobook. An audiobook is a version of a book that is spoken out loud for people to listen to in audio format rather than read it.
You can either narrate your own work or pay a narrator to do it for you. It is more cost effective to do this yourself but you do need a good, clear speaking voice and be able to articulate the subject effectively.
Websites such as ACX can help you produce your audiobook. As this platform is owned by Amazon you can easily distribute your work to the Amazon and Audible platforms. Once published you will usually earn royalty payments on all future sales with no other active work on your part.
Music & Audio
Sticking with the audio theme, another option is to sell music or other audio such as sound effects and ringtones. These may be purchased for use in promotional materials, videos or just as standalone tracks.
If you are a musician there are plenty of outlets for selling your own material including through your own website. Even if you aren’t an artist there are still plenty of free PLR products to re-sell in the audio category.
Apps
Apps are mobile applications designed specifically for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or tablet. The market for apps is huge and continuing to grow as mobile device usage increases. According to data by Statista mobile app revenue is predicted to reach over $613 billion by 2025. That’s a good reason to think about creating your own app.
Creating apps is not just limited to coders and techies. Anybody can create an app in minutes using no-code app builders like Appy Pie.
The great thing about apps is that there are such a wide variety of app types including; games, educational, eCommerce, booking services, subscriptions, lead generation and more.
They also offer many ways to monetize them through different pricing strategies. An app can paid for or free but monetized through other means such as advertising or in app-purchases.
Read this post for more information on the benefit of creating apps.
Plugins
A website plugin is a piece of software that can be installed onto a website to improve it or add extra functionality and features.
Businesses and individuals are always looking for that extra plugin that helps fulfil a need they have for their website, often willing to pay if it helps save time. Anybody with development experience could capitalise from this demand. Whether it be to improve performance, create content, security or something else, the possibilities are endless.
WordPress is the most popular web builder and hosting platform so plugins built for WordPress should reach the largest market.
NFTs
An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token which is a token stored on a blockchain. Practically any type of digital file can be sold as an NFT including; images, audio, video and more. Even a tweet has been sold. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sold his first ever published tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million!
There are lots of marketplaces for NFTs that use many different blockchains. Opensea is the world’s first and largest NFT marketplace for buying and selling digital art and collectables. OpenSea offers cross-blockchain support across Ethereum, Polygon and Klatyn.
NFTs are becoming increasingly popular digital products to sell. See how to create your own NFT for free.
Bots
Bots have many purposes with their main use being easy automation of processes such as chatbots for instance. Chatbots are increasingly being used for all types of customer service and engagement purposes. They replace the need for a human operator.
Business are increasingly automating their processes with bots as they have many benefits including saving money, continuous operation and greater program-ability. This presents a good opportunity to sell custom bots to people requiring better automation of their business processes.
You don’t need software development experience to create and sell bots. There are simple no code drag and drop builders like Conversiobot that have unlimited commercial licences available. This meaning you are free to customize and sell them to others whilst keeping all of the profit.
Read more about the benefits of chatbots and how to sell them.
Digital Art
Artists and graphic designers could put their skills to use by producing unique, in-demand digital art products. This could include logos, icons, backgrounds, themes, templates, artwork and more.
These can be sold through many ways including specialist art marketplaces like Artstation or freelancing platforms like Fiverr. Or even through your own website.
Podcasts
A podcast is a spoken word audio file that is made available for an audience to listen to by streaming or downloading over the Internet, usually in an episodic series format.
It is possible to sell premium paid for podcasts but most are free to access. Instead they are monetized through various methods including sponsors and affiliate marketing promotions. Or can be included as part of a membership subscription such as through a membership website.
It doesn’t take much equipment to create a podcast but it does require quite considerable effort to make podcasting successful. Read this post for more information on how to create a profitable podcast.
Video
Selling video products online can come in many forms. This includes creating stock footage, video graphics, reviews, instructional, entertainment videos and more.
There are lots of ways to make money from video. This includes creating your own video on demand service, selling stock video or creating a YouTube channel.
Webinars
A webinar is a live online presentation where the audience can interact by submitting questions and comments. Webinars (or web seminars) can take the form of seminars, training, events and video presentations conducted online using webinar software.
There are many ways you can use webinars including to;
- Educate and inform customers.
- New products and services demonstrations.
- Training.
- Building expertise and authority in your industry.
- Generating leads.
Webinars can be pre-recorded and played at specific schedules rather than always being held live.
Learn more about how to create a webinar.
Courses
Creating digital courses can be both personally and financially rewarding, making them a superb choice when looking for digital products to sell. You can use your knowledge to teach others and improve skills whilst generating an income.
Online courses have major advantages over classroom courses for both creator and learner. No travel, no physical paperwork and reduced costs make them incredibly accessible.
You can create a course around practically any skill or subject where others have a need to learn. Have skills to teach but not sure how to go about structuring a course? There’s plenty of specialist online platforms like Teachable that guide you every step of the way. Making it easy to create your own professional courses. Learn more in this free webinar.
Websites
When it comes to making money from websites you have several options. This includes operating a membership site, creating and selling your own website or website flipping.
Membership sites can be a great way to make additional revenue from a website or used as a standalone site. A membership site contains premium content that is gated. This means it is only accessible once people have provided their details.
Selling websites can potentially be quite lucrative. But initially creating and building a website will be more hands on than other businesses.
An alternative way to make money selling websites is through website flipping. Instead of building a site from scratch you purchase an existing website with growth potential. You would then improve the site and increase traffic. Turning it into a more attractive and profitable business which can be easily sold on for profit. Read more on website flipping.
Digital Freelancing Services
Have digital skills? Rather than selling digital products online, why not put sell your services as a digital freelancer? A freelancer is somebody working on a self-employed basis. This has some benefits like flexibility and being able to pick and choose your own work.
There are a great deal of digital freelancing platforms to sell your services on such as Fiverr, Insolvo, Upwork and Latium. Many customers on these platforms are crying out for products and services like the ones listed in this post. Websites, apps, digital art and more are all highly in demand, giving you plenty of business opportunity to sell these. Although it’s worth noting that some of these platforms do suffer from high competition.
Selling Digital Products Online Conclusion
When it comes to selling digital products online there are a great amount of options available. Some popular choices are eBooks, photos, apps and many more as listed above.
There are more benefits to selling digital products online compared to physical products. This usually includes greater profit margins, more flexibility and increased automation.
You can either create your own product or re-sell existing products. The great thing with digital products is that there are lots of easy to use tools available. These tools allow non-technical people to create their own product. From apps to bots and other software, these can be created with simple no-code platforms like Appy Pie. There is definitely good opportunities to make money selling digital downloads online.
Depending on the licence, some products allow you to re-sell to others for profit. A good example of this is free PLR products. These items are free to both use and sell, letting you keep all of the profit.
Hopefully this list has given you some good inspiration to start selling digital downloads online. You can find more posts like this on our blog including;
- 50 ideas for building online income streams.
- Make money freelancing on Insolvo.
- Make passive income streams.
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