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How to Sell Digital Products Online: A Beginner's Guide

Digital products are one of the easiest ways to start selling online. There's nothing to ship and nothing to store, and you make the product once and can sell it many times. They take real work to make, though, and some ideas sell much better than others.

Digital products that small sellers often offer

• Printable planners, calendars and checklists
• Templates (resumes, social media posts, budgets)
• Digital art and wallpapers
• Patterns (sewing, knitting, crochet)
• Short guides or workbooks on a skill you know well

Check these before you start

• Copyright and licenses. Only sell designs, fonts and images you have the rights to use commercially. Read the license on every font and graphic.
• Clear usage terms. Tell buyers whether they can resell, share or use the file commercially.
• Taxes. Digital goods are taxed differently in some places. Check the rules where you and your buyers live.

Where to sell

You can sell on a marketplace like Etsy, or from your own store. On Shopify, digital delivery works through an app (Shopify offers its own free Digital Downloads app at the time of writing; check the app store for the current options). After payment, the customer gets a download link automatically.

See how Shopify works for digital products

A simple launch plan

1. Make one product and test it yourself (print it, fill it in, use it).
2. Make clear preview images that show what's inside.
3. Write a description that says the file type, size and what's included.
4. Set up automatic delivery and place a test order.
5. Share it on Pinterest, where people actively search for printables and templates.

Want the bigger picture? Read How to Start an Online Store.