According to McKinsey research, global spending on digital goods is expected to hit $135 billion by 2024, and the volume of digital product transactions has increased by almost 70% in the last 2 years.
The digital product market has been growing steadily, driven by the increasing digitization of various aspects of life and work. This article will provide you with the best apps on the market to boost your digital product business.
How to sell digital products on Shopify?
A digital product is an item that can be sold and distributed electronically, without a physical form, these products are delivered via download or online access. Popular digital products are E-books, online courses, music, audio files, arts and designs, software and apps, pdf downloads…etc.
Can you sell digital products on Shopify? Yes, you absolutely can. If you want to sell digital products on Shopify, follow a few simple steps to set up your store.
- Sign up and set up your Shopify store: Sign up for an account and set up your store.
- Add digital products to your store: add products, enter the product details, and set the price. Remember to uncheck the “This is a physical product” box under the shipping section then customize the product page to match your brand.
- Install a digital product delivery app: Find and install suitable apps to help with the delivery of your digital goods
- Market and advertise: advertise your digital products to boost sales.
- Manage customer support: provide quick and effective support to your customers
What you should know before starting your digital product business?
In 2020 alone, over 2 billion consumers purchased digital products, so starting a digital product business can be highly profitable. Here are a few things you should know before diving deep into this blossoming market:
- The importance of Shopify digital product apps: Shopify doesn’t natively support digital product delivery, you will need third-party apps for product shipping. Set up the app to automatically deliver files to customers upon purchase, ensure the delivery process is smooth and reliable
- Licensing and copyright: Make sure you have the rights to sell all the content included in your digital products; create clear terms of service and a privacy policy for your store.
- Security and protection: You should implement measures to protect your digital products from unauthorized distribution, such as watermarks, limited download attempts, or DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools.
Lean into the growing demand and achieve success with the help of the top 5 apps designed for Shopify digital products.
1. Digital Downloads Filemonk – Best digital download app for Shopify
Filemonk is an easy-to-use app designed to help you sell all types of digital products, be it books, videos, tutorials, guides, software, music, and more.
User Feedback on Digital Downloads: 5.0 stars from 268 reviews
Key Features:
- Sell any digital product in 3 quick steps
- Instant file delivery
- Mobile-ready order download page.
- PDF watermarks, streaming & download limits
- 24/7 customer support
Pricing
- Free: Free
- Lite: $10/month
- Plus: $20/month
- Enterprise: $50/month
Filemonk is simple and quick to set up, you just need to upload your files & attach them to a product or variant and you can start selling. Filemonk supports multiple downloads/files for the same product/variant, and you can attach the same file to multiple products & variants.
After customers finish their purchases, they can access their products instantly; Filemonk will automatically send them emails with the download link. You can easily customize the email templates and the order download pages by adding your logo and changing colors and themes to match your branding.
Besides, a landing page may help increase significantly your CVR. You might want to check out some of the best page builders.
2. SendOwl – The only complete digital commerce solution
66% of the global population is now on the internet and 70% owns a mobile device, so the demand for digital products is growing at an unprecedented rate – making the digital product business a booming market. With SendOwl’s help, you can create, manage, and deliver digital products in just a few seconds.
Explore SendOwl right now!
User Feedback on SendOwl: 4.4 stars from 162 reviews
Key Features:
- Secure delivery with PDF stamping, time-limited download, 2-factor authentication, and more
- Deliver any file you can upload or link you can copy/paste as a digital product
- Access reports about order information, delivery data, income, etc
- Automatic marketing tools
- Effortlessly integrates with Shopify, Apple Pay, Mailchimp,
Pricing
- Starter: $18/month
- Growth: $37/month
- Pro: $89/month
SendOwl’s users have made over $2,000,000,000 with millions of transactions every year. You can start selling with just 3 simple steps: first, create and upload your products then connect your preferred payment gateway, list your product anywhere, start delivering orders securely, and finally receive your payment.
SendOwl offers a variety of features to help you increase orders and convert more sales such as one-click upsells, cross-sale capabilities, customizable checkout flows & cart templates product update emails, etc. While its features very helpful, you still need some advertising tools that help with your business.
3. BIG Digital Downloads Products – Sell digital products, ebooks, digital downloads, license keys
Big Digital Download by Penida is considered one of the best Shopify digital download apps because it offers a wide range of useful features to streamline your e-commerce business.
User Feedback on BIG Digital Downloads Products: 5.0 stars from 503 reviews
Key Features:
- Unlimited storage, unlimited digital downloads
- Unlimited bandwidth so you can sell sizable digital files
- PDF watermarking
- Limit how many hours/days a file can be downloaded and how many times it can be
- Automatically halt downloads sent to deceitful orders within Shopify
Pricing
- Free: Free
- Pro: $12.49/month
- Elite: $19.99/month
- Ultra: $49.99/month
BIG Digital Downloads Products supports all file types & sizes, the app lets you sell files as big as 5GB per file, and you can sell several 5GB per order. To protect your intellectual property rights, BIG embeds your clients’ information on the PDF pages to inhibit file distribution and it automatically pauses downloads sent to deceitful orders in Shopify.
BIG offers 3 effective ways to deliver digital downloads, the products will be available on the post-purchase page, on the email your customer will receive, and on your customer account. You can easily customize the appearance of your emails & deliveries, enhancing your professional brand image.
As BIG works effectively in global scale, you might want to add in some automatic translators or currency converters that serve different peoples.
4. Digital Downloads – Shopify free digital downloads app
Digital Downloads is Shopify’s free-of-charge digital product app, you can upload digital files such as videos, printables, songs, and graphic art as products in your store. When customers buy your products, they receive a link to download the file immediately.
User Feedback on Digital Downloads: 2.9 stars from 445 reviews
Key Features:
- Shopify’s official digital download app.
- Set custom download limits
- Add PDFs, JPEGs, ZIP files, and more to any product right from the app
- Combine digital files with physical or digital product variants
Pricing
- Free
With Digital Downloads, you can add new digital products or add digital files to an existing product. The app has two fulfillment settings: Automatically send files (after successful payment, customers are automatically emailed a download link and the order is marked as fulfilled) and manually send files (you need to manually mark the order as fulfilled before a download link is emailed to the customer).
You can set a download limit to control the number of times that a customer can download a digital product or deactivate a customer’s download link to prevent them from being able to download the product to prevent fraud.
A store with digital products will rely a lot on SEO and FAQs content to deliver information to
5. Courses Plus – Best for selling digital course
According to Whop, the e-learning market was worth over $210 billion in 2021 and is projected to be worth $840 billion by 2030. Courses Plus is the best app to help you sell online courses, from tutorials, and webinars to memberships and manuals. If you want to start up your own education business, Courses Plus gets everything you need without any coding required.
Some promotion bags may help a lot at selling course.
User Feedback on Courses Plus: 4.8 stars from 167 reviews
Key Features:
- Create and sell online courses
- Bundles and subscription-based memberships
- Generate PDF certificates for students
- Easy to style and customize courses
- Zoom live lessons
Pricing
- Demo: Free
- Basic: $29.99/month
- Professional: $79.99/month
- Enterprise: $199.99/month
Online learning continues to revolutionize the learning experience for students of all ages. With an impressive 900% growth rate since 2000, the multi-billion dollar industry shows no signs of slowing down. Courses Plus lets you create your online lessons with ease, from drip content to quizzes, from Zoom live lessons to one-on-one teaching classes.
You can monitor your student’s progress through their courses to identify areas of difficulty and prevent drop-off. The app lets you issue certificates to students who have completed your course and set up automatic recurring payments for continuous access. With many useful features, Courses Plus is undoubtedly the best app for online learning businesses.
6. Tevello Courses & Communities
Tevello Courses & Communities might be an app specifically designed to integrate course sections directly into a Shopify store. This could be beneficial for businesses selling educational products alongside their physical goods.
App Rate: 5.0 / 5.0 (182 reviews)
Pros
- Seamlessly integrate your online courses directly into your Shopify store, potentially creating a more cohesive shopping experience for customers.
- Might offer an easier way to manage and deliver courses alongside your physical products within Shopify.
Cons
- Potentially lacking features for advanced course creation or community management.
- Potentially fewer users compared to more established platforms.
Tevello is a good suit for small businesses as its free plan offers most of the essential features to run a course online. Even the support team is highly hospitable. If you are new in the business world and want to start a course, you can consider Tevello.
Wrap it up
Digital products can be sold and delivered worldwide without additional costs therefore it can access a larger customer base compared to physical products. Besides it helps reduce the carbon footprint compared to physical goods. Start your digital product business with the help of these top 05 essential Shopify apps.
Dan Muller
I have been working in marketing for four years, passionate about creative writing and copy writing. Love to be alone at watersides, sip coffee, play games or read anything that is thought provoking.