You’ve poured your heart and soul into crafting amazing digital products—ebooks, online courses, templates, designs, the works. Now comes the exciting part: finding where to sell digital products.
Choosing the right platform can be a game-changer, and thankfully, there are more options than ever before. But how do you cut through the noise and find the best fit for you?
Keep reading, as this article will show you where to sell digital products effectively.
Why You Should Consider Selling Digital Products
The beauty of digital products is that they exist in the digital realm, meaning no physical inventory, storage costs, or shipping nightmares. This translates to potentially higher profit margins compared to traditional physical products.
Selling digital products can create opportunities for recurring income with products like memberships or subscription-based services.
Although there are significant legal and ethical factors to keep in mind, you can learn them all in our guide on how to sell digital products. The best thing about this is gaining a greater degree of freedom and flexibility as an entrepreneur so that you can work how and when you want.
And, of course, it’s easier to reach a global audience with a product that you don’t need to box up to get there.
Choosing the Best Platform for Where to Sell Digital Products
The ever-expanding online marketplace presents a wealth of choices for entrepreneurs seeking where to sell digital products, but deciding which platform is the right fit can be tricky. You’ll want to consider whether an established platform is right for you or whether the autonomy offered by selling on your own site is the best fit.
Nonetheless, you need an ecommerce platform so you can start selling your digital content, graphic design, digital templates, and other digital products.
Selling Digital Goods on Your Own Website
If having complete creative control and building a brand around your online presence are priorities for you, this might be a good option for you to explore.
Setting up your own online storefront allows for greater customization, potentially resulting in a more personal and brand-consistent experience for your customers. You can decide everything, including which integrated payment processing to use and how you communicate with your audience.
You may also discover that hosting your own storefront incurs lower transaction fees than many marketplace platforms. As a result, you can keep a larger percentage of your profits.
Remember, however, that with total control also comes responsibility. You’re responsible for setting up a payment system and securing your website.
Additionally, without an established audience, driving traffic to your website and achieving those critical sales can require dedicated marketing efforts. This means you need to learn more about search engine optimization (SEO) so that your site will appear on the top pages of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Utilizing Online Marketplaces
For the second option, a well-established online marketplace offers pros and cons. Marketplace platforms provide instant access to a large, pre-existing customer base, which can be a significant advantage, especially when first starting to sell online.
Online marketplaces are often praised for being relatively straightforward to set up with their user-friendly interfaces. That’s because they only require less technical expertise to get up and running than building a website.
However, this ready-made accessibility frequently comes at a price, and marketplace platforms often charge commission fees on your sales.
Types of Online Platforms to Sell Digital Downloads
Once you’ve decided whether to host your storefront independently or use an established platform, the next step is to decide which type of platform best suits your needs. Let’s take a closer look at some of the popular choices and which digital products they work best with.
Best Platforms For Artists and Designers
Creative Market, from Dribbble, allows you to tap into an audience of 10 million users. Imagine having 4 million resources right at your fingertips. That’s exactly what this global platform allows, featuring designs from 190 different countries.
Another is Etsy, which has become synonymous with all things handmade. But did you know with over 46 million users, they aren’t just about selling grandma’s doilies and hand-stitched tea cozies?
With more and more shoppers going online each year, this popular platform offers artists a chance to capitalize on the trend. Thus, it has been at the forefront of the online market for over a decade—just wow!
Etsy can be an incredible avenue for tapping into the world of DIY enthusiasts. A search for “sewing pattern pdf” reveals a mind-boggling 400,000 results. Selling on Etsy allows you to access that pre-existing audience, which helps to cut through the online noise.
However, you need to remember that you have to factor in commission fees and transaction costs.
Some people selling artwork, digital art, and graphic design choose platforms like Society6 and Redbubble, to name just a couple, to market their designs on physical goods, too. Imagine other entrepreneurs will use your designs for their print-on-demand products!
Here’s a summary of digital files that you can sell on these platforms:
| Platform | Digital Products |
|---|---|
|
Creative Market |
Graphics, illustrations, website themes, fonts, product mockups. |
|
Etsy |
Printables, craft patterns, templates, digital planners, clipart, stock photos. |
|
Society6 & RedBubble |
Art prints, phone cases, t-shirt designs, and home decor items featuring art. |
Best Platforms for Educators
Even educators can now sell their “expertise” online.
And that’s no wonder since the rise of online learning has been nothing short of astronomical. Experts predict that e-learning will be an industry worth $840 billion by 2030—there has never been a more opportune time to tap into the educational market with this stat!
So, where do educators go when trying to figure out where to sell digital items that inspire learning?
If you’re an educator, you can choose to host pre-recorded or self-paced content on platforms such as Teachable. This popular platform has been making a splash since the creator economy exploded. And that’s because the e-learning market will grow 20.5% from 2022 to 30, according to Forbes.
Stan and Podia are other popular platforms where you can interact with your student base directly by building an engaged community—some users find Podia more affordable for just starters.
Another widely known site for e-learning content creators is Udemy. It allows you to set up your digital storefront using pre-designed templates. Udemy often offers tempting promotional and marketing tools that give new students amazing discount codes.
Platform What Makes it Great for Education
Thinkific, Teachable, Podia These popular learning management systems make it easy for selling online courses in different formats. They also make it simple to create compelling sales pages and handle all the technical details like hosting, security, and updates.
| Platform | What Makes it Great for Education |
|---|---|
|
Thinkific, Teachable, Podia |
These popular learning management systems make it easy for selling online courses in different formats. They also make it simple to create compelling sales pages and handle all the technical details like hosting, security, and updates. |
|
Udemy |
You may be limited to having the creative freedom to customize your content here. However, Udemy has already begun the hard work of building a well-known marketplace platform to connect teachers with eager students all over the world. Thus, you can deliver a much better learning experience for your students. |
|
Skillshare |
Similar to Udemy, Skillshare lets you access its pre-existing student audience. They use a subscription model, giving you a slice of the pie each month, depending on the popularity of your coaching sessions or content. |
Whether to use a learning management platform or list on an online directory largely depends on how hands-on you want to be as an educator.
But you must remember to build your own community around your online education empire. Selling online courses on a learning management site requires significant work and dedication to be a success.
The best about online learning platforms? They offer much more instant accessibility, which often equates to significantly higher profit margins.
Best Marketplaces to Sell Ebooks
When figuring out where to sell digital products specifically related to books, more and more self-published authors are looking beyond the world of just Amazon. Even though an incredible 83% of independently published books were sold via their platform in 2019, there are other marketplaces you can use to sell ebooks.
The Big Players: Reach and Recognition
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP): Having a user-friendly platform, you can say that KDP is the king of ebooks. Why? It has a massive audience, which means more potential clients! Moreover, it’s a great place to start since it has royalty rates of up to 70%. However, you need to prepare yourself—competition can be fierce on KDP!
Apple Books: Of course, we have an idea who the devoted users of this mobile app are—no other than Apple users! That’s expected since if you own an iPhone or iPad, you want to experience a seamless reading journey, which the iBook can deliver. For ebook sellers, you can use this engaged audience to your advantage.
Google Play Books: If Apple has an app for reading ebooks, so do Android users. The easy integration of Google Play Books with other Google services makes this a convenient option for Android readers.
Beyond the Giants: Exploring Additional Options
Kobo Writing Life: Although it’s not as big as KDP or Apple Books, Kobo has distribution to major retailers like Rakuten and Walmart. And if you’re into writing romance and other fiction genre, why not try Kobo?
Draft2Digital (Smashwords): If you want to maximize your reach, you can use this aggregator! It distributes your ebook to a wide range of retailers with a single upload.
Sellfy & Podia: Besides selling online courses, you can use these all-in-one platforms to sell downloads, print-on-demand products, and more. What’s more? You can use your existing website or create your own branded online store, especially on the Sellfy platform.
Choosing the Right Marketplace
Before making a decision, you can consider these factors:
Genre: If you’re writing a specific genre, check if such a platform caters to it.
Audience: Learn where your target audience is shopping for ebooks.
Tech Savvy: How comfortable are you with different platform features?
Pricing & Royalties: Don’t forget to compare commission structures and payout options since we want to maximize our digital rights.
You may also want to distribute your ebook across multiple platforms. Why not if it can increase discoverability and sales? However, prioritize the platforms that best suit your genre, target audience, and budget.
While Amazon is great as they take care of sending payments and sales tax, selling on it means giving away a percentage (sometimes as high as 70%) of your profits.
If total creative control and higher royalty rates matter most to you, then opting to sell on your own site or through your own online bookstore (yes, they do exist) will most likely be preferable.
Alternatively, platforms such as Apple Books and Kobo give authors another chance to get noticed by avid readers who love a good read but haven’t thought about branching out from a traditional online store environment.
Conclusion
Ultimately, deciding where to sell digital products in the ever-evolving online marketplace is a deeply personal journey shaped by individual needs and goals. Don’t be afraid to take some time experimenting with free trials, and remember that online resources are abundant at your fingertips.
Carefully weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen platform. Remember, your success in the world of online selling is directly related to how much time and effort you invest.
If things aren’t working out, it’s more than OK to reevaluate and pivot to a different platform—there really are that many to choose from to sell downloads.
FAQs
What if My Products Don’t Fit These Categories?
With digital goods continuing to dominate global online spending, there has never been a better time to create something incredible. Take downloadable items that help those making their own content, for instance.
If you’re a dab-hand with code, this can be incredibly lucrative because more and more bloggers and businesses want attractive, easy-to-use templates and designs.
Sites such as Envato Market give savvy developers and designers the chance to showcase their creations and sell downloadable products to their customer base. With many creators looking to generate passive income through courses, platforms such as this one let digital creators list everything from website templates to stock videos, graphics, photos, and audio.
If coding is more your jam, this website conveniently breaks down their areas of expertise to help connect creators with their perfect target audience.
What if I want my own branded store?
Consider platforms like Sellfy or Podia. These allow you to sell various digital products and create your own customized online store.
What if I want to connect directly with my audience?
Through Gumroad, you can foster closer relationships with buyers. This is where to sell digital products while offering exclusive content and directly interacting with your customer base.
