Selling digital products on Shopify

Running a digital product business on Shopify is a great way to start selling without managing order fulfillment and spending a fortune on inventory, warehouses, and shipping.

While Shopify isn’t primarily made for digital product selling, it gives you all the tools to succeed. You can set up free apps for automatic file delivery, use a streamlined checkout, and analyze product performance.

Continue reading as we break down how to set up Shopify for selling digital products and start making sales.

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Why is Shopify good for selling digital products?

Shopify wasn’t natively made for selling digital products, but it still has all the tools to help you succeed.

If you want to sell one or two digital products as a side hustle, then choosing an eCommerce marketplace like Etsy could be a good starting point.

But if you want to build your own brand and grow steady profit, then we’d highly recommend getting Shopify.

Here are our top reasons:

• Digital download apps. While Shopify doesn’t have features for digital product selling natively, you can choose from both free and paid apps for digital downloads from the Shopify App Store.
• Instant digital delivery. With the help of digital apps, Shopify can automatically deliver download links or files as soon as the purchase is completed. So, you don’t need to process each order manually.
• Automated order fulfillment. Every order is handled automatically, so you don’t have to spend time doing extra work.
• Managed hosting. Shopify takes care of the technical stuff, like hosting and backend performance, so you can focus on selling and building your brand.
• Excellent checkout. You get one of the best-converting checkout systems, which Shopify achieves by keeping it quick, convenient, and simple.
• Customer reviews. Shopify helps build buyer trust by offering apps for collecting customer reviews.
• Competitive rates. Merchants who use Shopify Payments only have to pay a 2.5%-2.9% + 30¢ credit card fee when using Shopify Payments. It’s transparent about fees, so you don’t have to worry about unexpected costs.

And if you ever decide to sell physical products on the side, Shopify is flexible to manage both.

How to sell digital products on Shopify: step-by-step

Selling digital products on Shopify requires creating a full-fledged store, configuring product settings for digital items, adding download options, and setting payment options correctly.

1. Set up a store on Shopify

The first step is creating a Shopify account and choosing a plan. If you’re just starting out, we’d recommend the Basic plan for $29/month.

It has all the features needed to build a functional store. You can also set up Shopify Payments to avoid the 2% third-party payment fee and pay only the 2.9% + 30¢ card rate.

When you need more staff accounts or make at least $25,000/month in sales, you can upgrade to the Grow plan, which will offset the cost due to the lower 2.7% card rate.

You don’t have to commit instantly, since Shopify offers a free 3-day trial, then 3 months for just $1 per month.

Then, choose a design from the Shopify Theme Store, whether a free or paid one, and install it on your store. You can customize it to fit your brand.

2. Create product listings

When your store is ready, start creating products for your store. Since selling digital products requires a third-party app, we recommend changing the product status to “Draft” until you fully set it up.

Here’s how to create digital products on Shopify:

1. In Shopify Admin, head to Products > Add product.
2. Insert the title, description, price, and other relevant information.
3. Scroll down to the Shipping section and toggle off the “Physical product” tab.
4. You can also turn off “Inventory tracked” under the Inventory section.
5. Save the changes.

3. Set up product downloads

To allow customers to download digital products, you need to set up the download function using a Shopify app. Shopify recommends the free Digital Downloads app, which they’ve developed for PDFs, JPEGs, and ZIP files.

Here’s how to configure download settings for digital products:

1. Install Digital Downloads from the Shopify App Store.
2. Open the app and press “Add asset” by the digital product you want to edit.
3. Press “Add an asset” and choose to upload a File or Link.
4. Set Fulfillment settings to automatic or manual and the Access limit to unlimited or limited.
5. Click Save.

The Digital Downloads app is good for basic use, but customer reviews show that support is basically non-existent. While we had no issues during our tests with this app, look through third-party apps if you experience significant bugs.

For example, our tests showed that the Pendora app works great, is completely free, and has a better rating than Digital Downloads.

4. Set up payments

Once your products are created, set up payments on Shopify. While auditing Shopify stores, we’ve noticed that some merchants still overlook Shopify Payments, but using it helps you save money on third-party transaction fees.

So, here’s a quick method on how to set up Shopify Payments:

1. Go to Shopify Settings > Payments.
2. Click “Switch to Shopify Payments” and then “Set up Shopify Payments.”
3. Follow the instructions.

5. Test the purchasing and download flow

To ensure a smooth purchasing experience, you should test the entire flow. Shopify offers Bogus Gateway for this, which is made for testing.

Here’s how to test your digital products:

1. In Shopify Admin, head to Settings > Payments.
2. Activate Bogus Gateway for testing.
3. Purchase a digital product from your own store.
4. Confirm that you get the file after completing the purchase and can download it.

We’d suggest testing it on both desktop and mobile to ensure a smooth experience on all devices, but don’t forget to disable the Bogus gateway after you’re done.

General tips for selling digital products

Strategies to sell digital products may be different than for physical ones. We’ve interviewed a few of our Shopify clients that prioritize digital product selling and found a few common tips for selling digital products in particular:

Avoid underpricing your products

Digital products usually don’t cost as much to make as physical ones, but they still take knowledge, effort, and time. So, avoid making the mistake of underpricing your product simply because it didn’t cost much money to make.

If you’re not sure where to start, perform a competitor analysis. Find stores that sell products in the same niche and review their pricing. You can check the cost on platforms like Etsy or use SEO analytics tools like Ahrefs to see your search engine results page (SERP) competitors.

Another option is using tiered pricing, which means giving a basic version for the lower price, and extra material for premium pricing. For example, let’s say you’re selling crochet patterns. You can set a smaller price for one pattern and premium pricing for a set of patterns.

Create a marketing strategy

The key to getting your digital products to sell is to create an effective marketing strategy. 

• Email marketing. When your store goes live, start building your email list. We’d suggest using pop-ups to offer a small discount in exchange for user emails, which helps merchants build an audience more easily. Update users on any special promotions, new launches, or helpful content.
• Social media marketing. Pick one or two platforms to promote your products on. For example, if you’re selling sewing patterns, you can use Instagram to showcase the finished pieces. Pinterest is great for digital products because it works like a search engine, so you can drive both traffic and sales long after you’ve posted a pin.
• Influencer marketing. If you struggle to build an audience, collaborate with creators who already have one. They can promote your products to their followers, helping spread the word about your brand.
• SEO optimization. Optimizing for SEO is a continuous process, but if done correctly, it can help ensure long-term, steady success. It involves tasks like optimizing your product pages with relevant keywords and writing SEO-friendly content.
• Exclusive promotions. You can create limited-time offers for your products to attract users to buy more through urgency. For example, you may offer bundle deals or run promotions based on the season.

Protect your digital products

Unlike physical products that would require money and time to replicate, digital products can be easily shared without your knowledge. To prevent unauthorized distribution, you should consider using unique download links that expire after a specific time or the number of downloads.

You should also add watermarks to your digital files, especially your file previews, since it discourages sharing. You can do it manually through platforms like Canva, which is both easy to use and free. But if you have dozens or hundreds of products, you can consider using a Shopify app like Easy Watermarks.

Since your products are digital, you must also create Terms and Conditions with licensing agreements. This gives you legal protection, so fraudsters think twice before stealing your products.

Optimize your digital product site

Even a good product may struggle to sell if your site isn’t optimized for a great user experience. Here are the main tips we suggest to make the most out of your store:

• Mobile-friendliness. Mobile devices account for around 52.9% of total market share in 2026 on average, so optimizing your site for smartphones is essential. Make sure the CTA buttons are big and visible, the text is the right size, the navigation bar is sticky, and follow other mobile optimization practices.
• Navigation. Ensure your store is organized and easy to navigate. If you have a bunch of different products, organize them into categories. The most important pages on your site should be within 2-3 clicks from the homepage at most.
• Checkout optimization. Make sure to provide users with easy options to check out. The faster they can check out, the more likely they are to complete the purchase.
• Images. Use high-quality images for your digital products, but make sure they aren’t too large. Follow the recommended Shopify image sizes and compress visuals to maintain fast page load times.
• Customer reviews. Customer reviews are a goldmine for users who are hesitant about your products or brand. Shopify doesn’t support reviews natively, but you can use an app like Judge.me to add the section for free.
• SEO-friendly product descriptions. Many merchants make the mistake of writing highly technical product descriptions. Focus on explaining the benefits for the user while using relevant keywords instead of simply listing specific features.

Why sell digital products?

Selling digital products is a great way to start a business without inventory. Unlike stores with physical products, digital product companies don’t have to manage inventory, have warehouses, or deal with shipping costs and delays.

Another important point is the profit margins. Physical products can cost money to make, while creating a digital product is cheaper. So, you get to keep a large part of the money you make as profit.

You also skip typical order fulfillment tasks, like packaging and shipping, which would take a lot of time with physical products. Meanwhile, you can sell unlimited digital products without putting extra effort into it.

It’s a low-risk method to earn money, but you still have to offer unique products that consumers would actually benefit from. That’s what your sales ultimately depend on.

What digital products can you sell?

There are thousands of digital products you could consider selling. Think of skills that you have and could use to share your knowledge or creations.

Here are some popular categories of digital products to help you with ideas:

How to analyze digital product performance?

Running a store isn’t just about selling. It’s also about monitoring how your products perform and finding optimization opportunities.

Here’s how you can analyze your digital product performance:

• Check which products are underperforming in the Total sales by product report in Shopify Analytics. Consider optimizing the product photos or product description to see if the situation improves over time.
• Set up a Google Analytics account and go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. Here, you’ll be able to see which channels your visitors are coming from, like email, social media, or direct traffic.
• Review the New vs returning customers report in Shopify Analytics. It can help you understand customer loyalty. For example, if most of your customers buy once, then you may consider post-purchase upselling or giving exclusive discounts after they buy a product.

Final thoughts

Shopify gives you all the tools that you need to set up a digital product store. While it doesn’t have a native option to enable product downloads, you can use its free Digital Downloads app.

Setting up a digital product store on Shopify requires changing product settings to make them digital, setting up downloads, payments, and testing your store.

When you’re ready to launch your store, make sure you have licensing agreements in place and add watermarks to secure your products and prevent fraud.

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About the author

Kristina Jaruseviciute

Kristina is a Content Lead at TinySEO responsible for informing and educating readers on all things Shopify-related. She covers a broad range of topics around SEO, AI visibility, website performance, and conversion rates to help merchants stand out in a competitive landscape.