Did you know you can sell digital products on Shopify? Contrary to popular opinions, you can sell digital products on Shopify. Digital products are products that you, feel, taste, or hold, but can only see. They include ebooks, music, audio records, videos, and more.
Ecommerce has progressed beyond selling physical products, and Shopify is here for it. Many successful businesses thrive on selling digital products. Artists all over the world have amassed wealth by selling their craft as digital products.
The beauty of selling digital products is that they are easy to manage. There are three common types of digital products you can sell on Shopify. They are; digital downloads, digital products/services, and NFTs.
Can You Sell Digital Products On Shopify?
Yes, you can. Shopify supports both tangible and non-tangible products. Unlike other e-commerce platforms, Shopify is the most suitable platform to sell digital products.
Shopify was designed to meet the needs of its users on every level. It is fast, easy to use, safe, and affordable.
Why Sell Digital Products On Your Shopify Website?
By definition, a digital product is different from a physical product. Selling digital products on Shopify has some advantages or benefits over physical products. Let’s find out what some of these benefits are.
Lower Cost of Production
Running an e-commerce store that focuses on digital products costs far less to maintain. A lot goes into the production, distribution, and selling of physical goods.
Cost of raw materials, production, packaging, shipping, storage, staff, logistics team, and any other cost you can mention. A digital store has no business with any of these.
You only have to concern yourself with the initial cost of creating the product and running the website.
You are Never out of Stock
Digital products are always available until you decide to retire them. Unlike physical products, you don’t have to restock or reproduce a digital product to keep selling. Maybe a little upgrade here and there, and that’s it.
And many years after it was launched, the proceeds keep rolling in with minimal effort on your part. You and customers don’t have to worry about shipping and how long it would take. Your customers can access their order almost immediately after payment.
Limited Barriers to Entry
Creating and selling digital products is nothing complex. Your expertise is all that matters. You can make whatever creative skill you have into a digital product and sell it right away.
A digital product store does not require a great deal of commitment to get started. Financial investment is also limited. You just need to create a Shopify store and pay the monthly service charge. You can handle your business with your smartphone or computer with or without external help.
Global Sales
The internet is a global market for all and sundry. Taking your business online exposes you to a larger target audience. Logistics is one of the biggest challenges of selling physical products online. Your products might be great, but you can’t ship to every region.
On the other hand, digital products can be sold to anyone across the globe in no time. It’s easier to find people that share common interests as you do on the internet. It may surprise you that that skill no one cares about in your location, is highly demanded in other places.
High-Profit Margin
The primary benefit of selling products is digital products is the high-profit margin. After analyzing other benefits carefully, you would agree with me that it comes down to cutting costs and making more profit.
Once the cost of producing physical products and running a physical store is off the list, you have a higher chance of making more profit.
Easy Access to Customers
Since digital products are non-tangible, they are often sold on platforms that require email signup. When customers signup to Shopify to buy your digital products, they’ve given you direct access. You can leverage this access to promote other products or services you offer.
Seven Digital Products You Can Sell With Shopify
You can sell countless digital products with Shopify. But we cannot mention them all. So, in this article, we will show you seven digital products you can sell on Shopify. They are profitable, and easy to create and manage.
1. Online Courses
The pandemic exposed us to something we all knew but never took seriously. What am I talking about? Online learning. We all saw some friends, family, and co-workers pick up new skills or get better at their jobs. Thanks to online courses. Over the past few years, more people have joined the trend of creating and selling courses online.
You can also be a part of the trend. All you need is sound knowledge in any niche of your choice and the zeal to teach. Learning online has become a big part of our lives, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
People love to learn new things from the comfort of their homes. It is often easier, stress-free, and cost-efficient.
Online courses are usually of two forms, video courses or ebooks. Both options are perfect for sharing knowledge. You don’t need to have any formal training or be a world-class writer to create online courses. All that matter is your expertise. Creating and selling online courses is a fantastic way to earn money from your knowledge.
Interestingly, there is no limitation to the kind of online course you can create or sell. Anything you can think of, there are a hundred to millions of people willing to pay for it.
If you can’t decide which online course to sell, here are some profitable courses.
- Baking
- Copywriting
- Yoga
- Graphic design
- Workout training
- Photography
- Playing musical instruments
- Biography
Explore the internet, ask questions, find out what people want to learn, and offer it to them as an online course.
2. Software and Games
If you are a software engineer or programmer, you have on your hands a goldmine. From simple puzzle games to complex 3D virtual games, digital software and games have great potential to make you loads of money.
Here is a photo of some common software.
Source: Tovovan/Dreamstime
You may be wondering if you need programming skills to sell software or games. No, you don’t. There are no rules to these things.
There is such a thing as a partnership. For many programmers and game developers, selling their craft online is a task they would happily avoid.
Partner with such people to help them sell their craft or manage their e-commerce website.
Who says you can’t learn these skills yourself? Software is a set of commands that run on a code. Games, mobile apps, websites, and many others are diverse types of software programs.
You can learn to code to develop games and software.
The complexity of the software depends on what you wish to create. The good thing is that you don’t need to learn all the complex things before making money off it. You can create simple games and software that meet specific needs and sell them on your Shopify website.
You can even use no-code tools like Bubble.
The software and gaming niche is a large marketplace with several sub-niches underneath. Pick anyone that works for you and build your empire around it.
3. Music and Audio Record
Music is the food of the soul. Everyone loves music, from country songs to gospel to hip-hop, to jazz and other kinds of music. Music is one of the most widely appreciated crafts across the globe.
As a musician, there are several ways to monetize your work. And top on the list is selling them as digital products.
Audio records are equally important in our daily activities. Both artists and regular folks need them. The movies, cartoons, and entertainment shows we watch, the podcast we listen to, and the yoga training session we subscribe to all have an element of audio in them.
You can create demo sounds, ringtones, and audio guides according to the request of your audience. And sell them at a mouth-watering price.
For instance, The Weeknd sold 2.15 billion copies of his single “Save Your Tears” as a digital product in 2021.
4. Templates and Tools
Templates make it easy to build a website, write a resume, design a presentation, etc. but without starting from scratch.
Whether you want to design a website, a photo journal, a complimentary card, or a business strategy, there is always something for you. Building from scratch is good, but giving yourself a head start is even better.
Not everyone will have the prowess to execute a plan without some help. So, if you have the creative skills to design helpful templates, go ahead and use them. show the world that you are a creative genius and help others get started.
Here are examples of templates you can sell on Shopify.
- Business contracts
- Photo album design
- WordPress themes
- Mobile app template
- Resume templates
- Business card design
- Canva templates
- Graphic design template
5. NFTs
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the new order of the day. There are tons of people that will pay any amount to have one. NFTs are a new type of cryptocurrency but with some significant differences.
All NFTs are different regardless of how similar they may look. Thus, you cannot exchange them. As in the case of identical twins, they share a strong resemblance. However, their fingerprints are different. Consider them as digital art created and sold as a cryptocurrency.
Selling NFTs on Shopify is a profitable way to earn good money. Creating the NFT and getting buyers is where the challenge lies. There are so many designs of NFTs out there. Anybody can design anything and call it an NFT.
If you want to make sales, your art needs to stand out or appeal to people at the very least.
6. Membership Sites
The first step to monetizing a membership site is to build a community around a niche or a group of niches. So instead of selling your content as a single product, you can charge a monthly subscription for people to access your content.
This is a great way to keep earning passive income while sharing your knowledge with a large group of people.
As a beginner, you can start by sharing free content with your followers. And then charge a fee to anyone who would like to have an exclusive session with you. Or you could set up a private membership group that only paid subscribers can access.
7. Downloadable Prints and Stock Photos
There is a large market for downloadable prints and stock photos. Often, physical products have unique designs on them. It could be school books, clothes, home decoration, accessories, packaging materials, and what have you.
As a creative, you can come up with different designs of printables and place them on sale.
Stocks photos are not left out either. Even creatives alike sometimes need already made photos to complete their work.
Conclusion
There you have it; 7 digital products you can sell on Shopify.
The unique thing about selling digital products is, for the most part, you are helping others.
Still, struggling to generate sales for your Shopify business? Sign up with Adoric today, let’s help you sell your digital products on Shopify.
