Digital products have made their mark in the cyber world because they’re easily accessible and provide a lot of knowledge that people are searching for.
From instructional videos, e-books, to PDF files and software, digital products are truly accessible in a wide variety. The market for digital goods continues to increase as more businesses are making the move to online selling and according to an estimate e-retail sales will rise to $6.54 trillion by 2022 which is up from $3.53 trillion in 2019.
The selling (and purchasing) of digital items has grown tremendously over the past couple of years. And there’s a reason for that. With digital goods, you can pay for, and download instantly. The key benefit of such goods is that, without the need to replenish the inventory, they are created once and distributed several times to various customers. That is why the sale of digital or downloadable goods on the internet is one of the most lucrative businesses today.
Choosing to sell digital downloads in the right marketplace helps you to foster more cash flow in your business. However, if you do not know about the dangers lurking, you will eventually fall prey to the many websites out there that will rip you off.
In this post, we’ll analyze the top-trending e-commerce platforms to sell your digital products in 2021, and to speed up your selection process we’ll set out all the benefits, features, and pricing plans of each platform.
Let’s get started:
- Shopify
Shopify is home to 1,000,000+ businesses from across the globe. This well-known e-commerce platform offers a wide range of free and paid themes with customizable designs to suit your personality and a click-to-buy button that focuses on the marketing of your items. Shopify manages anything for you, including hosting, updates, and security for your site.
Features:
- Effective e-mail marketing services
- Customizable design without any high-end skill
- Straightforward shopping option
- 24/7 customer support
Pricing
Start selling with Shopify at ($20/month). You can get a free trial to see how well it performs until you completely commit or not. Shopify also offer a built-in payment system, called Shopify Payments.
- Gumroad
This e-commerce platform is designed for creators of every field. Gumroad is the all-in-one solution for your online business that allows you to control your business management while offering helpful tools. You can sell your digital stuff like audio clips, eBooks and videos, software, film books, and comics, and many other digital products with a click of a button.
Features:
Gumroad offers the following amazing features:
- Built-in audience management tools.
- Multiple product versions.
- Clean and simple seller interface.
- Provide advanced analytics for projecting your sales.
- Support rentals for your music or videos.
Pricing:
Gumroad is free to get started and offers unlimited bandwidth but you’ll have to share a cut of your profits. There is a 3.5% + $0.30 fee per charge including unlimited bandwidth. A package with professional features starts at $10 per month.
- Easy Digital Downloads
As the name implies, Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell digital downloads from your site. Again, it’s a WordPress website that permits merchants to have a plugin that is very simple and light. This well-organized e-commerce platform is super easy to use and enables you to sell your digital content like eBooks, CMS plugins, PDF files, etc.
Features:
- Google Analytics
- Security from malware
- Integration with Mailchimp, stripe, etc.
- Tracking and monitoring download activities.
- Unlimited distribution of digital products.
Pricing:
Easy Digital Downloads has a basic free-version but for more functionality, you need their extensions. Its pricing plan starts at a $99.00 annual billing rate.
- Sellwire
If you’re looking for an easy sales platform to make your journey smooth as a beginner, this platform might be ideal for you. Sellwire is an e-commerce platform based on analytics with many features such as order monitoring & management, file management, and multiple promotional offers. Sellwire provides an insightful report to give you a better idea of how your products are performing in the marketplace.
Features:
This selling platform packs a lot of features like:
- Smart reporting
- Flexible promotions
- Simple marketing with a better sales percentage
- File management, etc.
Pricing:
Sellwire pricing starts at $9 per month for Solo plans. It also supports Pay Pal and Stripe payments.
- SendOwl
This is the best marketplace for e-commerce beginners who want to sell digital content across the globe. SendOwl is a mobile-friendly platform that doesn’t require much time to learn to navigate which makes it more appealing to get started. The PDF protection feature makes it more interesting to those who want to sell software, eBooks, and PDF files.
Features:
- Multi-language
- Responsive checkout
- PDF security feature
- Access to in-depth analytics
- Several payment options
Pricing:
SendOwl pricing starts at $15 a month with a free 30-day trial that does not require a credit card.
- Sellfy
This powerful e-commerce platform comes with a very creative and intelligent product marketing approach as it opts for a sales-enhancing social media program. The marketplace comprises more than 60,000 unique and innovative creators who are actively selling their goods on the platform. Sellfy is home to 150,000 unique design items available for selling. In addition, the platform offers its customers many greater opportunities for selling digital download, subscriptions, and memberships.
Features:
- Multiple payment options with instant payouts.
- Powerful analytics
- Mobile optimization
- The built-in email marketing tool
- Offer special discounts to users for sharing products.
Pricing:
With annual payments beginning at $19 a month, you can save up to 34 percent.
- Selz
Selz is an online selling store that allows you to sell artwork, eBooks, music, software, and other digital content. This platform offers a very good integration of the website designs and choices. With Selz, you can easily create a very attractive store along with the “Buy” button on your site and each store also has a built-in feature for direct messaging. You can create, manage, optimize and advertise campaigns with help of built-in-tools.
Features:
- An easy-to-use store builder
- Provide a WordPress plugin and a free Facebook store account
- Unlimited bandwidth
Pricing:
In Selz, the pricing module begins with a free account and you can enlist 5 products from which a 5 percent performance fee will be deducted from their revenue. The professional package comes with a monthly fee of just $27.
- E-junkie
E-junkie is an-easy-to use marketplace that manages your selling with great ease. This e-commerce platform is designed to sell creative digital content like books, digital items, themes, graphic works, etc. With its affiliate program, business owners can use it to recommend its service to users in exchange for a token, and users can sell it anywhere, including on social media and common markets such as eBay.
Features:
- An immediate downloading of the files and the codes.
- Affiliate programs with sign-up links.
- Customizable shopping cart
- Copyright Protection
Pricing:
E-Junkie offers a free trial of 30 days with no credit card after which its basic plan begins at $5 per month with the cooler package beginning at $20 per month.
- FetchApp
FetchaApp is an e-commerce platform facilitating online businesses since 2007. It allows you to sell your digitally downloadable products within the range of files, documents, artwork, and graphic formats. This marketplace is designed to work with both Shopify and Wordpess for selling and managing your digital products through a low-cost pricing rate.
Features:
- Easy selling of downloadable items
- Automate the distribution without installing or downloading something for the customers.
- Integrate with your existing website as it has an API.
- Offers unlimited bandwidth
Pricing:
FetchApp is super flexible with its payment plans as it offers more than ten subscription plans depending on the storage space. The free model offers 5 MB for users and, the cheapest plan costs $5 a month for 50 MB storage space.
- Simple Goods
An effective marketplace for digital goods focuses on selling the products without setting up a shop or storefront. All you need to do is to create widgets out of your products and buy them with simple one-click buttons. It detracts all the unnecessary features and focuses only on one thing, selling your digital content.
Features:
- Built-in file delivery and payment structure
- Flexible to work with any website
- No code required for selling
Pricing
A free model limited to 3 products and a 3 percent charge on all sales is available for Simple Goods. There are adjusted terms & conditions in its other pricing plans.
Wrapping Up:
Expectantly, you have found our guide informative and helpful. There are many platforms to choose from here, all of which come with a range of features and resources. So, which marketplace will you be choosing to sell your digital downloads?