There are many online business ideas for beginners but you can’t go wrong creating and selling digital products online for a living. It is an easy way to apply your skills while learning the online business game for bigger things to come.
- What are digital products?
- What are examples of digital products?
- How do you make money selling digital products?
- How do I become a digital product seller?
- Where can I buy digital products to resell?
- How can I sell content online?
- What is the best strategy to sell digital products?
- Is a website a digital product?
- What makes a good digital product to sell?
- Selling digital products – Conclusion
What are Digital Products?
A digital product is any product that was created for the purpose of electronic distribution.
This product is digitally transformed into a file of one or several formats and ends up being digitally stored. It is then transferred to the end-user for their use.
Although these products are created, stored, and transferred as a digital file it does not mean the end-use must be digital.
Digital-only refers to the container in which the product is delivered for end usage.
With the advancement in technology over the years basically, billions of digital content are being created or reused daily. This is where the demand for digital products comes from and it is growing daily.
This is evident when you ask the question “How many file types currently exist?”. You will get the answers varying from thousands to trillions. This proves that selling digital content online for a living can be very profitable.
What are examples of digital products?
As we have already determined there are millions of digital files and therefore an abundance of online business opportunities.
All you have to do is follow your interest and develop the skills you will need to supply quality digital products online and you are in business.
Although the examples of digital products I am giving below are just a drop in the bucket they will give you a good idea and a guideline of what you are looking for when doing research.
Some of the most commonly sold niches with digital files you will find on the web:
- Online courses
- Graphic Design
- Web Development
- e-Commerce
- Content Creation
Online Courses
Not only are online courses distributed in digital form but so is a lot of the content used to develop such a course.
An online course is a compilation of text, audio, and video files of several formats that can easily be created and delivered to the learner for use.
Online courses will have instructional videos, PDF documents for information, Word Document forms for capturing data, printable templates, and sound files to engage learners. These are all business opportunities if you have the right skills.
Graphic Design
Everything you see on the web is a digital file that will make sure the visual effects of what visitors see are different from others. Each digital file can also be created in various formats for instance images can be in jpg, webp, tiff, png, jpeg.
These are only the commonly used file formats but there are multiple formats in photography alone.
Clothing designs, typography, web page graphics, and social media all require digital content to survive and attract audiences.
Web Development
There are so many programming languages used for web development and it provides for a massive amount of digital files to be created in order for everything to work like a machine.
I’m not a techie but I know that there are scripts, snippets, APIs, and other software that are in high demand, and by creating these you will ensure a strong income stream that can really make you quit your day job in the future.
e-Commerce
e-Commerce is big and as with web development, there are hundreds of components needed to make e-commerce perform the way we the customers are demanding.
From shopping catalogs to marketing, shopping carts, and payment processors there is digital content in demand throughout the whole online shopping process.
Content creation
Everything you can see or hear on the web is content and all of it is digitally created. The main function is to generate some sort of response from audiences.
Web content is the most in-demand commodity that can be supplied by someone working from home because of the skills out there and the ease of creation.
Just visit freelance platforms like Fiverr and Upwork then you will identify plenty of new opportunities to sell digital products online.
How do you make money selling digital products?
Most online entrepreneurs prefer to sell digital products online because it is easy to create, store and distribute. The high demand also creates big competition.
At the end of the day, it is your skills and your product quality that will sell your product for you.
Selling digital products and making money by:
- Finding your niche
- Perfecting your skills to produce a quality product
- Do your marketing on platforms where you know potential buyers hang out
- Build a trustworthy portfolio with a quality product so you can build niche authority
It is time to start making money online and it is only a five-step process:
The whole idea is to create a product on your computer that you know will be in demand from your niche and will solve some sort of problem for the end-user.
- Package the digital content in a package that will be preferable to the buyer.
- List your product on a platform selling digital content or on your own website.
- Market your product on all the social platforms or use online ads.
- Make a sale
- Transfer the file to the buyer
It is one of the easiest online businesses you can start from home that can turn into a consistent income stream. Your income will depend on the complexity and demand of the digital product you create.
How do I become a digital product seller?
It is very easy for any beginner to become a digital product seller on the web. Most of us already have the equipment in the form of a pc or mobile phone.
We also have developed some skills in working with spreadsheets, documents, files, images, and other digital products.
It is up to you to find a niche that you like and have some skills with so you can start off immediately.
For the sake of this article let’s say you love doodling the whole day on pieces of scrap paper. This is an ideal opportunity as one person’s doodling is a Graphic Designers’ dream and they will always be looking for fresh content.
Your task is to develop this skill further by learning how to import these doodles. Then you can import it into a graphics editor and vectorize it for digital output.
You can build up niche targeting designs that you can sell on several web platforms. Head over and visit Creative Fabrica which is one of the biggest platforms selling digital content and you will know what I’m talking about.
If your skill sets are more on the technical side then you are fortunate as the digital content you create will be of higher value and can therefore be sold for better prices.
Developing useful scripts or code and selling it online is one way of getting the income you need. You can even go as far as designing and developing SAAS (Software As A Service) products for resale.
The main thing of becoming a digital product vendor is to continuously develop your skills and keep up to date with technological changes.
Where can I buy digital products to resell?
If you are a digital content creator or just selling digital content you can speed up the growth of your portfolio by buying digital content and selling it on your preferred platform.
There are three main sources for acquiring digital content for resale.
- PLR Distribution websites
- Online Digital Marketplace
- Freelancing services
PLR Distribution websites
There are many PLR ( Particular License Rights ) platforms that can sell you a huge variety of digital content from eBooks to videos.
If you intend to resell and repackage this content I advise that you make sure you have full commercial rights before making any changes to it.
Your options here are MRR (Master Resell Rights) which will allow you to resell without modification. The best option is a PLR product with resell rights that you can rebrand and make changes as if it is your own.
The 5 most popular PLR platforms are:
- Plrplr.com
- plrdatabase.net
- Urbanplr.com
- Plrproducts.com
- idplr.com
Online digital marketplaces
There are a few platforms you can visit if you want to obtain digital products for resale. These websites will offer SAAS products, scripts, software, and other technology products that will be slightly more expensive but worth the effort depending on your niche.
The top two digital marketplaces to find products:
Freelancing services
Another way of getting digital content online for the purpose of reselling is by sourcing it through a freelance platform. When doing this you have to make sure the creator sells it with full commercial rights.
Most of the content on freelancing platforms comes in the form of digital content as an end product.
The 5 most popular freelancing platforms are:
- Upwork
- Freelancer
- Fiverr
- People per hour
- FlexJobs
How can I sell content online?
Selling digital products online is probably one of the easiest online businesses to operate but selling the product can be a bit of a tough one if you have no experience in online product marketing.
That is why starting on a popular platform is the best option for beginners because they already have traffic and they take care of all the storage, distribution, and after-sales.
This will lend you the perfect opportunity to learn and put in place your marketing skills before starting your own digital content website. Sales are made through consistent marketing to create a following on all social media platforms.
I suggest selecting one social media platform at a time and building your presence. In this way, you can first monitor what is working and what is not. Jumping between all of them will distract and dishearten you quickly as you will see no results.
There are four platforms where you can sell your digital products:
- Free product listing websites
- On platform shops
- Social media
- Own website
- Freelance platforms
Free product listing websites
These are websites that will allow you to list your products for free as part of a global product list. It will also mean that there is no distinction between your brand and the others on the platform.
The traffic is good and sales can be good if you have a ton of these digital products listed. The platform will also take a small percentage of your sales to cover the service they offer you.
Suggested platforms for beginners to start with:
Amazon KDP – eBooks, Journals, and other low-content books
Udemy – online courses
Mojo marketplace – Codes and Scripts
On platform shops
These platforms will offer you your own shopfront as a subdomain of their website where you can display all your digital content.
Similar to the free product listing sites they will take part of your profits for the service they provide. This is a good option for beginners as it gives you the opportunity to see what your own store will look like while keeping an eye on what the competition is doing.
And will also give you the opportunity to develop your brand and style while building social media presence.
You now have one specific destination you can market in order to drive traffic to your source.
Etsy – Selling any of your digital products easily from your own shopfront
Creative Fabrica – Graphics and other artist materials
Spring – Multiple formats can be sold on Spring ( Previously Teespring )
Social media
It is possible to directly sell your digital products to your followers on social media but I would not recommend it as it is very time-intensive and will leave you with very little time to grow your business.
That said it might be an option for you to “test the waters” with your product before going all in. A Facebook shop might be the perfect solution but you will still have to drive your own traffic.
If you want to go this route you must make sure you have secure payment processors in place.
Your own website
If you can get to the stage of moving your content onto your own website it is an ideal situation. This way all profits will be yours but some of it must go back to the business to cover expenses.
Common expenses you can expect are domain name, hosting, SSL certificates, payment processors, and other resources you will need.
Before you go on your own make sure you have the time to manage your website, product creation, and marketing. Doing everything yourself can be hard work and time-consuming.
Namecheap – get your domain and hosting here for your own shop setup.
Shopify – The most popular platform to set up your own shopfront.
Ecwid – A fast-developing platform for e-commerce.
Freelance platforms
Selling digital products on freelancing platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork is simple but it takes away some of your freedom to be creative. In this case, you have to produce to customer specifications.
This can also count in your favour as you can build experience with what customers expect from a digital product and also what they are willing to pay for it.
Freelance platforms will take a portion of your sale for service fees but it might be worth it while developing your end business.
Freelancing is the perfect income stream to help you grow a long-term goal with a fixed income.
What is the best strategy to sell digital products?
One of the best strategies for selling online digital products is to create product bundles.
Because your run-of-the-mill digital product does not have a high-profit margin it is better to sell as a bundle and therefore obtain a higher price when sold.
These digital content bundles sell better through Google and Facebook ads. This is because it stands out on its own and cheap impulse buying is the order of the day. Seeing 500 web buttons at a cost of $9 evokes more buyer emotion than 50 for $1
Another good strategy is to set up a portfolio website and then visit all the niche-related forums in order to build authority by sharing your skills and product.
Building a solid presence on the web is the only way you can ensure that your product goes out into the market.
Is a website a digital product?
No. A website is not a digital product but it is filled with digital products. At its core is a web template which is a popular form of digital product to sell.
Some other digital products that can be used to make a website functional:
- Text content
- Header and side banners
- Decorative graphics
- Ad spaces
- Plugins
- Scripts
- Buttons
It all boils down to the fact that a website is only a container for digital content.
What makes a good digital product to sell?
In order to create a solid and long-term online business by selling digital products, you have to ensure that you identify the right products. The correct product for you will not only match your skill set but will also have the following characteristics:
- Easy to create
- Demand
- Quality
- Quantity
- Price
- Distribution
Easy to create
First of all the product you are targeting must be easy to create and the reason for this is because you have to create a large quantity of it to show a profit. The only way to make things easier for yourself is by developing your skill sets so creation becomes easier.
When it comes to more complicated digital content the income will obviously increase but you still want to maintain a quick product output. If you don’t keep it easy you might burn out before you achieve success,
Demand
The digital product must have a high demand so that you can create and sell volumes. The equation you look at is low demand, higher pricing, and high demand for more volumes.
As you want to sell digital products online to become your full-time income you have to make sure that you target a niche that is in high demand and evergreen.
If you are targeting trends it is short-term and the only way to earn an income is to develop new skills matching every trend or you’ll have to outsource.
Quality
It is important that the digital products that you create are of superior quality because of the competition you are up against. Not only will the quality of your products set you apart from competitors but it will also allow you to sell at a premium rate.
When you are working on a long-term business strategy and are considering building several streams of income it is important to build quality that lasts.
Quantity
The only way to sell digital products online for a long-term business is to have a portfolio of quantities supporting you. It is proven that quantity does not only sell but also increases presence and visibility on the web.
To have consistency in your niche you have to ensure that you cover it well in order to create a one-stop-shop for digital products.
Price
Because of the fierce competition in the digital content market pricing will play a major role in your success. However, it is important to find a balance between your high and low-value product offerings.
It is nice to only have highly-priced content on offer but keep in mind that there is a magnitude of beginners on the web that can’t afford it and are looking for cheaper content.
It is therefore important to also include cheaper offerings in your portfolio. People buying the cheaper products will grow their business and soon start taking up more expensive offers as their needs and experiences increase.
It is important that your digital product is designed for the specific market you are targeting.
Keep yourself informed by researching and comparing your products against your competitors in the same niche. This way you will not price yourself out of the market and also keep in mind that they are putting the same effort in to win the sale.
Unfortunately, as a beginner, you might have to sacrifice time without attaching any value to it while building your portfolio.
Distribution
A good digital product must also be easy to finalize and ready to be packaged in a way that is easy for your buyer to use.
If it is complicated then there will always be a “How to use” instruction file attached. This practice will save you a lot of time answering questions from buyers.
File sizes also will play a major role in your digital product both because of your online storage costs and the delivery costs of the buyer.
There are still a lot of people that would use and pay for the data to download their product after purchase.
Large file sizes can be a put-off for people paying for expensive data.
Selling digital products – Conclusion
An easy online business to start for beginners with bigger plans and one of many online business ideas you can explore and start right away.
There are many options for digital product sales and some niches might be more accessible than others depending on your skills.
Skill levels are what determine your potential income but for most beginners, it will be easy to acquire these skills quickly.
This effort to learn new skills, plan your business, and build a large portfolio will guarantee you a decent income stream. In time this can potentially blow up into full-time self-employment.
Leave a comment below that can help other entrepreneurs to be successful online.