See the best ways to sell digital products online and make an extra income
There has never been a better time to earn extra income by creating digital downloads online, all from the comfort of your own home.
When you learn how to sell digital downloads on etsy or other platforms, you get the opportunity to complement your income and can even replace your current job once you get good with selling downloadable items online.
Some of the best platforms to sell on are Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, and eBay, which we will cover these platforms in this article.
Creating products to sell online can be a very fun way to make an income while reaching a very wide audience across the internet who are interested in what you have to sell.
Whether that is art, ebooks, services, etc, you can be sure that by harnessing the power of the internet, you can reach people interested in your products all across the globe.
Creating Digital Products
Creating online downloadable content has never been easier due to the number of platforms that have started over the last 5 years.
There is a range of different industries where you can sell your digitally created products and not only sell but get inspiration to what you should sell online.
If you have a current skill such as graphic design, you can leverage your skill to make downloads such as an eBook helping others with some graphic design tricks and tips.
You can also make the design for printables such as wall art and t-shirt designs where you can just sell the design, and other people will buy your design so they can gain the rights to use what you have made on any product they may own.
But remember, any skill you currently have you can put together also in an ebook or even a video course and sell across many different platforms. (Yes, what a time to be alive!)
Best Places To Sell For Your Digital Downloads
We will mention just a handful of platforms where you can sell online goods for a low cost and immediately get eyeballs on your products and make sales.
Selling Products On Etsy
When it comes to selling anything digital or even physical Etsy is a powerhouse of a platform and is one of the most preferred platforms for artists looking to sell their designs.
Etsy is an online marketplace that will allow you to list your goods with very small overheads so you can keep costs down while you start your new side/main business.
Selling Digital Downloads On Etsy
Selling online products on Etsy is a fantastic way to earn passive income but you will need to sign up for a free account over at Etsy first.
When you have signed up with Etsy you can browse around to get inspiration about some of the items you may want to sell there.
Once you have a item you want to sell simply create a new listing for it and attach your payment method to Etsy such as Paypal or direct deposits to your bank account.
Sell Products On Amazon
Amazon is one of the biggest marketplaces for buying and selling, this can range from ebooks, digital courses, or any physical items you are selling.
Amazon doesn't even really need an introduction as if you have used the internet before you will surely know Amazon. Every month over 197 million people shop on Amazon (source).
If you have skills in an industry and it's more suited to making an ebook or course ebook we would recommend selling the download on Amazon as they are unrivaled when it comes to books and ebooks.
Selling Products On Your Own Website
This is a great way to start your passive income journey but it's not as easy as using already established platforms such as Amazon and Etsy due to these platforms already having an audience.
When you use your own website to for your own items you must build your audience which can take time and cost more than the free platforms above.
The advantage to having your own website is you own the traffic and don't have to worry about any problems which you could run into with using Amazon and Etsy.
Nowadays it's quite easy to simply watch a Youtube video and then build your own Woocomerce e-commerce store that looks good and you can also start collecting visitors' emails to sell your new products monthly to them.
Also, another benefit of using your own website is you can choose more payment methods for your customers, and if you are selling online products that are based on a course you don't have to sell ebooks you can make your whole website a course based website. This is called LMS and you can see more info here on how to do this.
With the above different platforms mentioned for selling online products, we will be covering the different digital items to sell.
What Type Of Items Can I Sell
This is based on skills you may already have so if you are good with graphic design stick to this or if you are maybe good with writing so make an ebook on how to Copywrite.
We will cover some of the ways you can make online downloadables and earn a passive income below.
Products For Etsy
Etsy is very good for artistic-type items or graphic-based downloadable products..
- Handmade Jewelry
- Printables
- Artwork
- Personalized cards
- Notebooks and journals
- Wedding products
- Vintage items
- Personalized gifts
Printables work very well on Etsy too, so you can make a design and sell which can then be put on t-shirts, mugs, and much more different physical-based items.
Products For Amazon
Amazon is the king of ebooks so if your product is related to a course or ebook you can choose to list your items here.
If you have a skill that you can teach then look to package it in an ebook and sell it on Amazon. We have just mentioned a few different skills below you can make into an ebook.
- Dog training
- Computer Repair
- How to Copywrite
- How to make passive income
- Travel
- Website Hosting
- Selling houses
The list is endless with possibilities to make your own ebooks, plus you can choose to sell artwork or physical items on Amazon too.
Selling Products On eBay
eBay is one of the longest-standing online marketplaces around so we recommend if you are selling on Amazon then also list the same items on eBay.
eBay is geared around physical products but you will find digital products being listed on eBay from courses and ebooks.
Selling Products On Shopify
Shopify is a great platform to sell your digital items on as it's so easy to launch a store with Shopify and add your downloads.
They have their own Shopify payments as well but also other big payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, and more.
Shopify is very user-friendly and is built for beginners who may now know how to put a woo commerce store together so using Shopify will get you up and running very fast.
They have built-in analytics too and some marketing tools you can use to market your business to get more sales.
Their customer service is always on hand to help you with any problems you may face and also you can watch many YouTube videos on how to sell on Shopify.
Selling Products On Gumroad
This is one of the newer platforms which has had some great growth over the last 5 years.
This is the perfect place to sell online courses that you have made either by video or packaged into an ebook.
Gumroad seems to attract a more intelligent audience who want to learn how to make a passive income, so if you have any of these skills you can write about then Gumroad would be the best bet to sell your products on.
- Dropshipping
- SEO
- Trading
- Social media marketing
- PPC
- Server Maintenance
- Writing
- Pay per clicks
As you can see from the above Gumroad is more geared towards skills that are based online and around digital marketing.
Finding Different Type Of Products To Sell Online
You do not have to have a skill it will help but you can always leverage other people's skills to make a digital based product.
You can look across the different marketplaces mentioned in this article and see what kind of items there is to buy then start working on your own even if you do not have the skill.
You can reach out to people already knowledgeable in that industry and sell if they want to partner with you or you can learn the skill yourself and carefully craft a item you can sell which we help others.
If you learn yourself then make sure the downloadable product is always the best resource around that gives tons of value for people on the skill you have covered.
Resources That Will Help With Your Business
Below we will mention different resources from creating art online to converting file types for your new business.
Canva
Canva is a great place to make your artwork and is very user-friendly. You can whip up some great artwork in no time using Canva.
You can also upload your own artwork you may have drawn out and turn it digital then use Canva to make some changes.
Canva can also help you make cool-looking images if you choose to use your own website plus you can make logos easily using Canva.
Cloudconvert
This is a great resource that is free and will help with converting any file type to another format.
So let's say you have written a course out on Microsoft Word and you are wanting to turn the course into a PDF you can head over to Cloudcovert and then easily convert the .doc file into a PDF.
Fiverr
This is an amazing marketplace full of freelancers that can help you with practically anything.
We recommend you check this platform out for yourself to see everything it has to offer.
But an example of using Fiverr would be if you made a video course you can get very cool intro videos made for every video of your course and for a low cost of $5 normally depending if you need any extras on the Fiverr gig.
How Much Money Can I Make?
Selling items online really has no ceiling, you can make $10,000 a month or make a little extra passive income a month of around $500.
The good thing with selling your own made content is you can make money around the clock even while you're asleep.
The money you make will depend on the items you sell and how much they are in demand and of course how much effort and time you have to pour into your endeavor.
You can see this Etsy case study of how Kate Hayes makes $9,500 a month using Etsy.
How To Market My Business
If you are using platforms such as Amazon and Etsy they will do some marketing for you but normally it's not enough so you should always create social profiles for your items.
Once you have created all the social channels you can work on getting followers and posting all your products to them. You may also opt to spend a little on social advertising, to reach the correct audience you need and build a following.
If you opted to use your own website to sell goods then you can use SEO, PPC, and email marketing to reach and attract the buyers you need for your items.
Bonus: You can also use all the platforms such as Etsy, Amazon, and eBay, and every time you make a sale, you can mention your website (flyer, email etc) to make sure the buyer starts to use your website in future.
Doing the above will help you own your own audience which is always the best thing to do and you won't have to rely on Etsy, Amazon, or eBay in the long term and can build a real online business based around your products.
Conclusion
We have covered some of the easiest and best ways on how to create digital downloads to sell across many different platforms.
You will now be armed with the knowledge of the different type of products you can make and then sell easily across many different platforms which suit your own needs.