When you start a webshop and want to sell online, you often think of selling physical products. But why not sell courses, memberships, rentals, and much more on a Shopify solution?
A webshop is often associated with the sale of physical products. A customer places an order, which is packed by you and physically delivered to the customer. It could be t-shirts, jewellery, perfumes, suitcases, computers, and much more. But have you considered whether you can sell digital products in your business?
What is a Digital Product?
A digital product is an asset or piece of media that can be sold repeatedly online without you having to refill an inventory. Depending on what you sell there may be a maximum if the customers could sign up for a personal course where the owners can handle a maximum of x number of customers.
Digital products often come in the form of digital files that can be downloaded or streamed, such as PDF files, videos, plug-ins, templates, etc.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Products?
The Advantages:
- It has very low fixed costs because you do not need an inventory and you have no costs related to the delivery of a product. Roughly speaking you do not need more than a computer, and you can actually run your business from anywhere in the world.
- You have very high profit margins on your products as you do not have to go out and buy products from another place. In this way you retain the majority of your sales in profit.
- Potential to automate your digital products for the whole world. When your customers buy they get it delivered right away, and you have no return costs if people regret anything but your time.
- You have a lot of opportunities to build up your customer loyalty in the form of an email list and monthly subscriptions where customers can access exclusive content.
- E-learning is the future of education. You have a huge opportunity to expand your business and influence with eLearning - An industry expected to be worth $374 billion by 2026.
The Disadvantages:
- You are constantly in competition with free content on the web. You can get a lot of learning through YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and more platforms without having to pay a penny. Therefore, you will need to think carefully about what you can tell and why they should pay a price for this.
- There is a high chance of copying/theft of your digital products as they can easily be shared without you noticing. You must take your precautions and reduce these risks by using the right tools to protect your products.
- There are some limitations on how to sell digital products. For example, you must sell physical products through Facebook and Instagram sales channels according to their trade policy.
Ready to Start a New Journey?
If you are about to start your new entrepreneurial journey, or you want change in your current business, then you can expand your physical products with digital ones. Here you get some different examples that can help you.
Service agreement: Companies that sell both physical products and digital products can make use of agreements with existing customers or new customers by offering online bookings. Salons, music, schools, dentists, and many more can offer bookings and personal services through an online store.
How?
Bookingsapps offers a dynamic calendar that lets customers book their preferred date and time according to the store's opening hours and staff.
Membership: Many organizations depend on the monthly or annual paid membership which helps to ensure the survival of the organization. In this way you can offer your members exclusive access that no one else is allowed. Golf courses, clubs, galleries, and educational content producers are several good examples of selling memberships online which in the long term ensures very high customer loyalty instead of selling one-time services.
How?
Several apps offer that you sign up for monthly subscription, and in this way you can protect your customers but also have control over your finances. It can both be a combination of a physical store that sells subscriptions to its customers.
Consultations: You are passionate about something and have a lot of expertise in your field, so why not sell it online to a lot of interested people? Everything from interior designers to fitness trainers can use an online store to book and sell personal consultations.
How?
Bookingsapps offers a dynamic calendar that lets customers book their preferred date and time according to the store's opening hours and employees which also ensures against double bookings.
Digitale Products: Anything you can find online in a virtual format can be a digital product that you can sell online. Music, fonts, images, videos, programs, elements, and more.
How?
Apps can instantly deliver files to customers after a purchase or send a link that allows access to download the files.
Experiences: You can sell af lot of different experiences where it can vary from travel to wine tasting to camp schools. You can offer customers to buy their experience through you where you then pass it on to the various companies that handle these experiences.
How?
Integration for the various experiences so that you have control over the number of bookings as well as additional information on the customers. Here you have to take into account medical concerns and contacts if an experience requires it.
Live Streams: There are a number of ways to monetize online content through ads and tips on various social platforms. With Live streams the business can become independent by owning the Live broadcast itself which takes place on one's own platform. Here you will be able to sell tickets where customers must be able to log in to view the content.
How?
Integrate an app with your Shopify store to monetize video content and streams and access detailed reporting.
Setting up Digital Products in Shopify
When you add a product to your store, you can uncheck the box for delivery to indicate that you are selling a digital product or service and not a physical product. If you sell a digital product, you must also use an app to provide a download link for your product.
When you do a search for Digital Downloads in Shopify's App Store more than +100 searches come up that can help you on your way.
