The best digital products to sell online and start earning from anywhere. Beginner-friendly ideas with zero inventory and real income potential
Great Digital products to Sell on the Internet For First-Timers Searching For Some Easy Ways to Make Some Cash
INTRODUCTION
Do you want to make money while you are asleep, and do not have to worry about shipping any items or handling returns? Creating digital products is exactly how you can do that!
All digital products are created one time and resold many times over. You do not have to have any type of warehousing; you create it and basically upload it to your website, and then when someone purchases it, it is sent directly to their email address.
This tutorial is created specifically for beginners looking for simple factual explanations. In this tutorial, you will learn which types of digital products are profitable, the easiest way to enter the digital product marketplace with no technical skills whatsoever, and some important aspects of creating your first digital product that will help you avoid wasting countless hours on building something that doesn’t work.
What are digital products and why are they so effective?
A digital product is basically anything that you can sell in a electronic format. Digital products include things like e-books, templates, audio files, video files, online courses, and printables. You create a digital product once, and then you can sell that same digital product as many times as you want without having to incur additional production costs. Digital products provide one of the best high margin business models in existence today. Traditionally with physical products, there is a cost associated with producing them, storing them and shipping them, so much of the profit is consumed by the production process itself. With digital products, production, shipping or storage are totally eliminated.
The appeal of this is clear to a new entrant into the market. A warehouse does not need to be built, nor does money need to be set aside to pay for the storage space of inventory until it is sold. The important things are the skill you have, the content you make that people are willing to purchase, and the platform (basically the tool) where you sell it from.
The digital product market has been very much on an upward trajectory over the last several years. The shift to remote work culture, the vast increase in online education opportunities, and basically convenience in general has pushed many more people to purchase things in digital form than ever before. This trend continues.
The Best Digital Products for Online Sale
Electronic Books
For new entrepreneurs, writing an eBook is a great way to start their businesses. Regardless of your level of expertise, there will always be an audience of people looking for assistance in whatever area of knowledge you possess.
The secret to successfully selling an eBook is to narrow down your topic to something very specific. An eBook entitled, “How To Be Healthy” probably won’t sell, whereas an ebook entitled, “A 30-Day Meal Plan For Busy Parents Who Never Cook” would immediately find a specific audience who would purchase it.
Free software such as Google Docs can help you to create and format e-books, and free software such as Canva can assist you in creating the cover of your e-book. Most platforms, including Gumroad, Payhip, and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, offer simple solutions for distributing your content.
E-books that are typically popular include: personal finance, fitness plans, career guides, relationship advice, and how-to manuals (in any area where someone is facing an urgent issue).
E-book Prices can range from a couple of dollars for short e-books to fifty to sixty dollars for longer e-books that provide extensive information.
Printable Planners & Templates
Printable items are the digital files you download to your own computer or device, then print at home. They cover a bunch of different things; like daily planner pages, wedding checklist pages, habit tracker sheets, kids’ activity sheets, and so much more. There are literally millions of sellers making printable items, so while there is still competition, if you find a niche you like, you can still be successful selling printables. Etsy is the largest site for people searching for printable items and there are millions of people searching for these products every month!
You don’t have to be a designer to start out. Canva provides free templates which include the ability for sellers to create their own original products from the templates by altering them in some way. Vendors will need to review the content license agreement to ensure they are not violating any of Canva’s rules.
If you create one good planner template, it will sell hundreds of times over several years and the only ongoing cost associated with it (other than the initial creation) will be the platform fee for each sale.
Online Classes and Video Lessons.
Online Courses are sold at the higher end of the digital product marketplace. A well-structured online course can sell for an amount ranging from $30 to several hundred of dollars, depending on the quality, the subject, and the credibility that the instructor brings to the course.
You don’t have to be a world class learner. To create and sell an online course, all you need to do is be a couple steps ahead of the students you’re targeting, and able to explain what you know in a format that can be used for learning.
Platforms such as Teachable, Thinkific, and Udemy permit you to both host and sell your courses without having to create a website of your own. If you have an established following and choose to do it through your site instead of using other platforms you can enjoy much better profit and ownership.
Many of the successful course topics include software tutorials, creative skills like photography or graphic designing, language learning, business strategies, programming for beginners, and health and wellness programs.
Beginners generally benefit the most from keeping their productions straight forward. Productions made of simple screen recordings and clear audio have the best chance of being produced successfully; however, complex productions often have difficulties getting produced successfully. Good done beats perfect is the best philosophy in this scenario.
Digital Templates for Professionals
Professionals need digital templates to help save time, produce more efficiently, and create a professional appearance regardless of what industry they are in. The most commonly requested types of templates are: resume templates, business proposal templates, social media content calendar templates, invoice design templates, and presentation slide deck templates.
Anyone who knows design, marketing, business, and administrative fields is ideal for this category. Basically, you know what needs to be included in these documents so that they serve their intended function. Knowledge is the basis of your product.
The two most popular professional template marketplace sites you can utilize are Creative Market and Envato Market. You can also sell your products on your own website to save more money on every sale.
An effective Resume Template that can help the job seeker create an impressive application will be available for sale at premium price because there is always an ongoing influx of new people entering the job market.
Stock Photography and the Production of Digital Arts
You can sell your creative work over and over with either your camera or creative skills.
Stock photo sites such as Shutterstock, Adobe Stock or Getty Images allow photographers to upload their pictures so that customers can licence them to use for business or editorial use. you will receive a royalty for every time someone download your photographs.
Most digital art, illustration, and graphic designs work the same way. For example, almost all stores on the Creative Market and Etsy sell brushes, patterns, textures, icons, or clipart packs, and artists receive a royalty each time a customer downloads their digital work.
The amount of money you can make from individual downloads is pretty limited, therefore it’s best approached as a volume play. When a lot of good quality assets build up on your site, it will eventually add up to passive income.
Podcasters, YouTubers, video creators, and app developers all need sound effects, background music, and audio loops to use in their content. If you make music or are an audio producer, this can be a great niche with a lot of demand.
Musicians can sell their music to creators through sites such as AudioJungle, Pond5 and Bandcamp.
Most stock audio sites are set up on a royalty-based model, so each track can produce revenue through a number of projects, with you having to do no further work.
Software And Apps And Digital Tools.
The technical side of the scale includes small software tools, browser extensions, Notion templates, Airtable databases and productivity applications that can generate a lot of money.
To sell an excellently constructed Notion template for $20-$50 will be able to generate thousands of purchasers from within the Notion community.
Software products can be created without possessing any of the skills of a full-stack developer if you have the proper tools. You can use Bubble, Glide, and Webflow as no-code solutions to build digital tools that work and solve real problems, even if you don’t have the technical skills to do so.
Selecting the Best Digital Product for Yourself
not every product will suit the needs of all creators but there are three things which will be helpful for someone who wants to create content to identify where they should start.
(1) What knowledge/skill/interest/expertise that can be used to teach or show someone else, (2) What does the target market have in their needs that they look for and buy to address; and (3) What is the best way for you as a creator to present or produce content.
Writers should start with eBooks or eGuides. Designers should look at digital art and templates. Teacher or expert- considering a course. Someone with some kind of organizational skill set might want to start with printable planners.
choose one of the products and see if it is going to work. If your ebook generates $50 in the first month with close to zero promotions, then there is obviously demand for it, and you have something you can grow on.
Where to Sell Digital Products
Your selling platform shapes how far you can reach, what fees you pay, and how much control you have over your relationship with
Table of Platforms to Consider
Platform | Best Use | Fee Model | Customer Base
Gumroad is ideal for any type of digital product; its fee model takes a percentage from every single transaction and the user is responsible for bringing his own customers. Etsy is best for printables or any kind of creative files and has listing fees + transaction fees and a built-in audience (marketplaces). Teachable is best for courses (online) and its fee structure includes a monthly fee and a transaction fee. The creator would have to bring in their own customer(s). Payhip is appropriate for ebooks or downloads. It offers a free plan, but charges a fee per transaction and requires the user to bring their own traffic.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) / eBooks / Royalty-based model / Huge in-built user base
Creative Market / Design Assets & Templates / Percentage of Sales / In-built Creative User Base
Udemy / Video Courses / Revenue Share Model / Huge Student User Base.
For beginners its better to start wtih a marketplace like either etsy or udemy becasue these marketplace wil provide you wtih pre-existing traffic. once you start tu grow, the best way to take control is by building a direct audience through either your own email.
Typical mistakes that beginners make when selling digital products.
The biggest thing people get wrong is creating before they know if anyone will buy it. Most beginners will work for weeks creating a course or a 100 page ebook, and launch with zero sales because they didn’t even take the time to see if someone wanted to purchase it.
Before putting a significant amount of time into a product, you are going to want to see if there is a market for it. Take a look at some of the same type of products you want to sell and see if they are selling on the same-type platform you have chosen to sell them on. Read reviews of similar products so you can figure out what your customers would want more of (or less of). Basically, get out on social media and talk about the topic, and see how many people engage with it.
Another mistake people make is setting prices that are too low. Digital products are generally considered to have a very high value. For instance, offering a comprehensive guide for four dollars would indicate you probably have not done any research, because it indicates that the guide does not represent much value. Be sure to research what most other sellers are charging for similar-type products and price your products accordingly.
The number one mistake that can destroy an otherwise successful product is often neglecting the sales page. Most of your sales are made through the description, title, and images on the listing. And if your product listing isn’t optimal, you’re going to see fewer sales, even if your product itself is top-notch.
Quitting due to slow sales in the initial few months is likely your number one mistake. Most digital product businesses need approximately 3-6 months before they will regularly make sales. The successful creators are those who, during this time, continue to experiment and update their listing and enhance their products with feedback from customers and develop their audience at the same time.
Pros and Cons of Digital Product Business
Pros:
No inventory or shipping/storage expenses involved
Once made, a product can have infinite sales
Eventually, the income from this business may become completely passive.
Low operating expenses as opposed to those involved with selling physical products. You can operate an online business from anywhere, provided you have access to the internet. You can reach many buyers through different platforms without having to develop your own traffic directly out of the gate.
Cons
High product competition in popular product niches
Usually digital product income building is slow during the first few months.
Some types of digital products can be exposed to a threat of being pirated.
Marketing needs to be done, and will take ongoing effort.
Third party marketplaces take a commission (fee) from the digital product sales made on their platforms.
To keep your product relevant you may need to periodically “update” it.
Higher Level Techniques to Scale & Grow your Digital Income
Once your product has been validated and you have made some sales, your next priority becomes scaling.
A great way to help a business grow their digital products is by making an email list. An email list is more helpful than any social media following simply because when people trust you and are active, they value your input. Create a free lead magnet, maybe a sample chapter or a short checklist, to get email addresses. Then, use the email list to promote your paid products to the people who signed up!
When you create product bundles, the average order value goes up. So, if you have three templates that you are selling individually for $10 each, if you sell them as a bundle for $22, then you are providing a special deal to the buyers and you make more money every time someone buys that bundle.
With affiliate relationships, other creators will be helping to sell your products for a small part of the sale. This results in more sales being made without you having to spend all your time marketing yourself.
Special seasonal sales connected to specific dates and times of year can generate steady increases in sales throughout the whole year. For example, a sale on budgeting planner templates in January will lead to many more people making purchases during this time of year. Another would be having wedding planner templates on sale just prior to the beginning of wedding season.
After you have developed an audience that believes in what you are doing, finding ways to expand your product line to other complimentary formats would be a logical next step. A product such as an eBook could turn into an online course. An online course could create a coaching program. An eBook could lead to a full collection of business tools.
FAQ Section
Which type of digital product is simplest to start selling online for a beginner?
PDF guides and printable material are the most accessible way to begin with digital products. You can produce them using no technical skills, with free design tools; there are already large and active marketplaces like Etsy where people are searching for these products and when you produce a well-designed planner or budget tracker that serves a particular need, it can begin generating sales immediately!
So, Do I need to create a website to market my digital product?
No. Gumroad and Etsy, along with Teachable and Payhip, provide the opportunity to sell digital products without a website. Over time, having your own website, though, gives you greater brand presence/control and improved margins.
What amount of revenue am I able to expect from selling digital products?
Income can be variable (low) per month (for instance, a couple of hundreds) for someone who has only a few printable items to sell, and can also be multiple of six figures if you have a great course or library of design assets to sell. So, realistically, for beginners, while learning, iterating, and building an audience, it’s good to expect very little earn for the first couple of months. But after a 6 to 12 months of consistent efforts/selling of your products, you will definitely see the meaningful results of your hard work.
SUMMARIZED LEARNING POINTS/ELEMENTS
Ebooks, printables, templates, courses, stock assets, audio files, and software tools are among the best digital products you can sell online. All have different skill sets required for creation, so your first digital product should be one you know how to create now.
You can avoid wasting time and effort to build a product that nobody wants if you validate the demand for your product before creating it. The price you set should reflect the true value of your product, and should not be based on your fear that someone will say no to buying it. The sales page is as important (if not moreso) than the product itself.
Compounding generates profits. All these elements will contribute toward your overall sales and income over time. More products, more email subscribers, better product listings and consistent marketing.
Selling Digital Products Online: My Final Thoughts
Digital products sales meet the criteria. They are easy to set up a sales presence for, and there is no limit to how much you can increase sales. Many of the existing digital product sales models allow you to continue making passive income long after you have created a digital product with little to no ongoing effort.
The person who chooses one type of item, creates a good one, shows it correctly and keeps advertising that item will be more successful than someone who spends months planning his business and never launches an item.
Thus, the beginner should keep his/her item clear and specific and not try to do everything at once and/or overwhelm him/herself with multiple items. The initial outcomes should point to the subsequent action to undertake.
CONCLUSION
The digital products that you can make and sell on the internet are the best digital goods to sell. All veteran digital sellers started with one product, some initial sales and were committed to seeing it through the tough initial phase.
You have got knowledge, skills, or even creative work, which would have value to someone else, if they could access them. The last thing you have to do is basically arrange that information in such a way that it can be downloadable, and then place your content in front of those individuals who desire it.
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