How To Create Digital Downloads To Sell

If you want to first a home-based business, it doesn't get easier than learning how to create digital downloads to sell and then opening up your own Etsy store.

Selling digital prints on Etsy or other online marketplaces is a great fashion to make money from domicile with few upfront costs and no inventory problems.

I started my digital downloads business organization a few years ago just only got started on Etsy recently.

Read on for everything y'all need to know about selling digital prints on Etsy, Amazon and other online sites.

This post may contain affiliate links. Delight read my Disclosure for more than information.

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How to create digital downloads to sell

Before you learn how to create digital products to sell, y'all demand to decide what to sell and where to sell them.

There are then many different kinds of digital products that y'all tin sell online merely choosing the right ane can make the difference between a thriving business organization and a non-starter.

You don't take to be a graphic designer to start a business selling downloads but you lot will need to utilise a software program that permit'due south you create PDF printables.

Where to sell digital downloads

Y'all take a few options when it comes to selling the printable downloads that you create.

Your all-time bet is to listing your items in equally many places every bit possible to boost your chances of lots of sales.

Should I Sell Digital Downloads On My Website?

Yes! My preferred identify to sell digital downloads is on my website. I take full control of the pricing, there are no fees and information technology's easy to prepare.

There is more piece of work involved in setting upward your listings and the checkout procedure but once you have a organization, you will find it easy.

You can easily sell digital downloads online with PayPal and a gateway site such as SendOwl.

Sendowl allows you to add checkout buttons to your website and and so it acts equally the merchant, taking payment and delivering your digital product to the client.

The advantage of this versus a market like Etsy is that you will be able to collect your customers emails and market to them when you launch other products they might like.

The disadvantage of selling your digital products on your own site is that you demand to get traffic to the site in order to find buyers.

Y'all will accept to promote your website on social media and Google. If you already accept a blog or site, and then it's easy to add together a store to your site and harness your existing traffic.

If you don't accept a site yet, here is how to start your ain web log that makes money.

You could also consider you can opening your own shop with Shopify.

Shopify gives you lot the flexibility of your own storefront without creating your own site. You can create your site nevertheless yous like using their themes and take advantage of their checkout processes.

How to sell digital products without a website

If y'all don't have a website and don't desire to build one and promote information technology, you tin can however create an amazing printables business.

You can do this past putting your products on online marketplaces and using their marketing tools and merchant services.

Amazon

Selling printables on Amazon is an easy pick. If yous write stories or how-tos, you can make money with Kindle Publishing.

In fact, many different kinds of digital downloads such equally planners tin be sold on Kindle.

Etsy

You may know information technology every bit the handmade market just the truth is, digital prints sell really well on Etsy.

The rest of this post will focus on the ins and outs of selling digital downloads on Etsy but all of these tips can exist translated to Shopify, Amazon or your own site

Advantages of selling your Digital Downloads on Etsy or Amazon

i.Huge Traffic – both Etsy and Amazon attract millions of shoppers every day and give you the best chance of making lots of sales in a way you couldn't with your own site.

2. Instant File Delivery – Both platforms transport your digital files directly to the customer meaning your sales are completely handsfree one time you take listed your items for auction.

3. Low Kickoff-up Fees – It is very cheap to become started with Etsy (xx cents per listing and v% transaction fee) and Amazon is similar.

iv. Get Started in Minutes – Setting up and starting an Etsy store is really easy. Kindle Publishing is very straightforward too.

Here are my tutorials for each platform:

How To Start An Etsy Store Successfully

Brand Money With Kindle Publishing

Selling Digital Prints on Etsy – The Lowdown

If you lot have some time to look at the Etsy bestsellers list for any given calendar month, you volition see that digital downloads, or printables are about ever at the acme of the listing.

Gone are the days of having to order custom invitations from a fancy printer or creating your own fettle trackers.

Nowadays, you can buy almost anything in printable form online for a fraction of the price and and so print yourself whereever and whenever you want.

Personal, I take bought many digital downloads from Etsy – from nuptials invitations to babe shower games.

If you are interested in selling digital prints on Etsy, in that location are so many things yous tin can make.

What kind of digital products can I sell on Etsy?

The best thing you can do is have a wait on Etsy to get some ideas for what sells. My advice is to pick a niche and focus on that in social club to actually build a customer base and stand up out from the crowd.

And so many products can be fabricated into a digital download that someone wants to buy.

To come across what products sell the near on Etsy, you can check out websites like erank and Marmalead. Both these sites will show y'all the top sellers and types of products that are selling on Etsy in real time.

Consider the following that all have a market on Etsy:

Education materials
Watercolor artwork
Cute sayings for framing
Invitations
Bottle labels
Snapchat filters
Bachelor party games
Wrapping newspaper
Tags for gifts
Planner Stickers

The bestselling digital downloads on Etsy

The top selling digital downloads are often associated with a major life issue.

Getting married, having a baby and celebrating life'south milestones are great opportunities for selling your digital downloads.

Here are some ideas:

Weddings

Weddings are a goldmine for anyone selling digital prints on Etsy.

Think of all the things you demand – Relieve the Date cards, wedding invitations, place-cards, anniversary programs, menus, invitations for the rehearsal dinner. It never ends.

And that is not including the shower and bachelor/bachelorette parties that demand invitations and games.

In that location are whole Etsy stores that just focus on selling printable games for bachelorette parties, for example.

For more than information on this lucrative Etsy niche, read my article on How To Get-go An Invitation Business organization On Etsy.

Babies

People having babies are the souvenir that keeps on giving when it comes to selling digital downloads.

From baby shower invitations and games to birth announcements – at that place are and then many unlike Etsy printables you lot can make and sell.

Plant nursery artwork is another great seller and digital downloads brand this way more const-constructive for new parents.

Other Milestones

Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and other life events are other occasions when people similar to buy squeamish invitations, thank you lot cards and signs.

Digital Downloads That Sell Seasonally

Another type of digital printable that sells really well are seasonal products. Plain the holidays are a great time to sell all kinds of printables, from games to decorations.

Many products can be adjusted to suit different holidays too (for example, I take seen chocolate bomb tags for Christmas and Valentine's day).

Don't forget about smaller holidays such equally July four and St Patrick'due south day as there are huge markets for these kinds of days too.

Here is a free ebook on more seasonal printable products that sell well on Etsy.

Evergreen Products To Sell On Etsy

An evergreen product is basically the reverse of a seasonal production. Evergreen digital downloads can be sold all year round and are not focused on a specific season.

Planners are the number ane evergreen product on Etsy. Of course, planners are huge sellers at the starting time of the yr merely people wait for niche planners all year around. An example of a niche planner would exist a budget printable or a fitness tracker.

Artwork and altogether invitations are other examples of evergreen products.

The Best Programs To Create Digital Downloads To Sell

The good news is that you lot don't need to really spend any money to get-go making printables.

You don't have to buy an expensive graphic software such as photoshop or illustrator every bit there are gratuitous products that can brand beautiful digital products.

I've fabricated printables with Google Sheets and Docs but it does help to use a real graphic site.

My peak pick is Canva. I sell digital downloads on my website and on Etsy and I employ Canva to create them all.

Canva is a free online graphic tool that will let you make planners, invitations, gift tags and any other digital products. There are tons of templates on Canva to get you started with creating your own products.

Canva has quite a lot of tutorials on making dissimilar digital products to become you started.

I also took this course on creating digital products to sell on Etsy. I highly recommend taking it if y'all are serious nearly your Etsy download concern.

The course is run by two Etsy shop owners who sell digital downloads very successfully. I took it over the holidays and learned then much from them.

The course includes:

Step-by step tutorials for creating many different templates in Canva and other software
Free templates to get you started
Sep by stride guide to starting your own Etsy shop
Tips for creating listings and pricing your products
An sectional private Facebook group with tons of support

What most selling custom digital files on Etsy?

If you want to take your digital download business concern to the next level, then you can offering customizations to your buyers.

Personalized products will sell for a much higher price than generic printables just of course, you volition need to spend the time creating each one.

In that location are two different options if you lot want to sell custom digital downloads:

First, you could make each detail to gild and enquire customers to fill out their information when ordering. If you have the template ready to go, this shouldn't take you too long to do and it volition assistance to increase your sales.

Secondly, you could offer editable files that they alter themselves. The Etsy printables course above has a lot of tutorials on creating custom digital files using a product called Corjl.

This is the best option in my opinion because yous tin yet offer instant digital downloads to your customers and brand passive income instead of having to piece of work on each order.

Corjl is also an online marketplace and so it offers some other identify to list your digital downloads for sale.

Example of an editable digital file for auction on Etsy

Where can I find graphics for my Etsy downloads?

You tin can't but grab complimentary clipart online and use it in products yous want to sell on Etsy and other sites.

You demand to adhere to copyright laws and only apply graphics with a proper commercial license, specially when you are selling digital products.

There are a few places yous tin can get clipart, fonts and other graphics for commercial utilize:

Canva

On Canva, you can use clipart and fonts that are complimentary to utilise for commercial use. This includes most of their graphics and some of the fonts. The only catch is that yous tin simply use altered graphics and media:

From the Canva website:
Unaltered vs altered media

By using content in a blueprint or a composition, you lot're creating something unique – one time you do, in that location are very few restrictions on what you can do with your creations. Go wild!

However, unaltered media has restrictions – it can only exist used in up to 800×600 (or 600×800) pixel dimensions and information technology tin can't exist sold or printed on products or merchandise.

The Hungry Jpeg

I buy well-nigh of my graphics from The Hungry Jpeg. They offer tons of bundles of graphics, fonts and illustrations for peachy prices.

They likewise have a weekly freebie that includes a complete license that yous can use on products for sale – check out this week's here.

Creative Marketplace

This is another keen identify to source fonts and graphics for your digital products. Creative Market also gives out 6 free items every Mon so it is worth checking out. Hither are the freebies this calendar week.

What size should my Digital files be on Etsy?

Etsy allows you lot to upload 5 digital files for each listing on Etsy. Each file has a limit of 20mb so you may need to compress your files into zips if your downloads are graphic heavy.

If you have trouble minimizing the size of your digital downloads, some other option is to upload it to dropbox and provide your buyers with a link to the item there. I've used this option and it works great.

What file format should I use?

I normally offer my products in both PDF and jpeg formats. Nearly people desire the PDF simply it's nice to offering both options.

What about paper size?

You lot can offering alphabetic character size for US customers and A4 for European buyers plus other options such as 5 ten seven or 8 ten 10 depending on what kind of product you are selling.

If you have Canva Pro, you tin can resize your products in seconds using their resizing tool which makes information technology easy to offering different size options as office of your standard listing (this can assistance to increment sales).

How much money can you brand selling digital products on Etsy?

Although the sky is the limit with creating digital products to sell, it's worth knowing some numbers.

Manifestly, digital downloads do not sell for as much as paper products that you create and transport to your customer.

However, you lot can make a digital download once and sell it again and over again, creating a passive income stream that makes you money while you sleep.

Some digital products such every bit artwork tends to sell for a bit more than money but on average, most products sell for under $twenty.

This means you would need to sell fifty items a month to make $1000 before fees (Etsy takes 5% of your transaction fee plus charges 20 cents for each list).

How practise I price my products on Etsy or Amazon?

In order to get the right price for digital downloads, you lot actually need to do some market place inquiry to see what your competitors are pricing their items for.

My biggest tip is that you want to exist middle of the pack. Besides cheap and people remember your product is non proficient quality. Too expensive and you toll yourself out of the market.

There are no existent guidelines for pricing as each niche and product type is unlike.

Recall to gene in the Etsy listing fee and transaction charge (5%) in your product cost.

Getting started selling digital downloads on Etsy

1.Create your products

Earlier you open your Etsy Store, you want to piece of work on creating some products. Etsy actually doesn't permit you open a shop without uploading at least i production and to be honest, most Etsy experts recommend at least 10-20 products before you launch.

2. Open your Etsy Shop

In one case your products are ready to become, information technology's time to open up your store. You take to pay for every listing you lot add to your shop merely you can get 40 free listings when y'all create your shop through this link.

Yous tin can follow my step-by step tutorial here for starting your Etsy shop successfully.

3. Pick the perfect Etsy Shop Proper noun

If you already own a website, picking your Etsy shop name might be easy. If non, it can be a huge fourth dimension suck. This mail service volition tell you everything you lot need to know about picking the perfect Etsy shop name.

4. Add together your listings

In one case your shop is ready to go, you tin can spend some time perfecting your listings. Digital products can either be printed out and posed on backgrounds or you tin create listing photos on Canva.

You can add together up to 10 photos on your list and I recommend using as many as possible.

You lot can then add a detailed description to your listings so your customers know what to expect.

I always make it very clear that it is a digital download only and that null will exist shipped.

5. Promote your store

Don't just create your listings and expect for the auction to coil in. Make sure to promote your products on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and everywhere else you can call up of.

Join Facebook groups in your niche and become involved and so promote your products naturally.

How To Create Digital Products To Sell – Final Thoughts

Selling digital downloads on your own site or on Etsy is a great manner to create a passive stream of income from abode.

Make sure to research the kinds of downloads that y'all want to brand before you start your business. Niche printables practice well because there is less competition and you can cleave out your own target market place.

Brand sure to promote your products on social media in order to attract as many buyers as possible.

If you want to learn more virtually creating printables online , make sure to cheque out the Etsy printables course from Gilt City Ventures.