How to Sell Digital Products With WooCommerce

WooCommerce Selling Digital ProductsIf you are looking for a way to sell digital downloadable products, WooCommerce should be top of the list of options available for you. This post takes a deep dive into selling digital downloadable products using WooCommerce.

We will show you the usefulness of selling digital products, check how it can be used as a revenue strategy, and how it differs from physical products. Ultimately, you will be able to set up digital products in WooCommerce. Then, we will look at the security and licensing details on how you can protect your digital products.

Selling Digital Products Online

To be honest, the digital revolution is here to stay, as many products have vanished from the shelves to be in our hard drives, for example, books, music, and photos.

The digital revolution has become so common that even calculators, watches, spreadsheets, and notebooks became apps that are used on a day-to-day basis.sell digital products with WooCommerce Additionally, even some services have become digital as well. This can be seen in stores that offer virtual gift cards or online courses.

Moreover, having digital products will create a convenient place where users can access your products. A good example is the iTunes Store created by Apple Company, which provides convenience for finding music. Users are also willing to pay for this convenience as these products can be downloaded.

Without wasting much time, here are the steps that you need to follow to sell digital products.

Steps to Add and Sell Digital Products in Your WooCommerce Store

  1. Log into your WordPress site and access the Dashboard as the admin user.
  2. From the Dashboard menu, click on Products > Add new. Then, you need to add the product details such as price, download limits (if any), expiration date, and make sure to check the virtual and downloadable options as shown in the image below. Moreover, you can add as many download files, as you want for your products.adding a digital product

Additionally, you need to make these digital products tangible by even sending something simple as a thank you note in after customers download your products to give customers a better feel.

How to sell Complex WooCommerce Downloadable Products

Selling digital products is one thing, and occasionally you may need to sell different variations of the same product. For example, if you are selling music you may want to sell digital and physical versions of your product.

This is very easy to implement as it can be done using the WooCommerce variable product. This will help you to have multiple products inside the digital product meaning that you can have digital and virtual variations of regular products. Setting complex WooCommerce digital products is very easy and you need to follow these steps:

Steps to add complex WooCommerce Downloadable Products

  1. Log into your WordPress site and access the Dashboard as the admin user.
  2. From the Dashboard menu, click on Products > Add new. Then, you need to add the product details such as price, download limits (if any), expiration date, and make sure to check the virtual and downloadable options.
  3. Then, under the attributes tab add the different versions you have for your product as shown in the image below. Here you can use Licensing, media type, packages, and many other variations. Make sure to select the ‘used for variations’ checkbox as shown below.Adding complex products
  4. Under the variations tab, add the different variations you want. When creating one, you can select the attributes of a simple product for it. This implies that one variation can be virtual and downloadable, while others are not. In the image below, you can see that the download variable can be downloaded, as it is a virtual product. Remember to Update the changes that you make.Adding variations in complex products

Licensing and Copyright to allow access to file URLs only when needed

When selling digital downloadable products in WooCommerce it is very important that you protect your files. This is because some users may try to abuse this by downloading the files directly or using it beyond its license.

However, in the past, digital products did not have any protection at all. It was even as simple as guessing the download folder or the private page URL to get access to everything. Nevertheless, worry less, as there is a solution to this problem. The best way to serve files now is through the X-Accel-Redirect/X-Sendfile module, which is included in a lot of hosting providers. It allows only authenticated users to download your products.

But why go through all this, and WooCommerce has built-in functionality to protect digital products and provide access restrictions. After following these few simple steps, you will be able to license an add copyright to allow access to file URLs only when needed.

Steps to Add Restrictions on a Digital Downloadable Product

  1. Log into your WordPress site and access the Dashboard as the admin user.
  2. From the Dashboard menu, click on WooCommerce > Settings.
  3. Then, select Products > Downloadable Products.
  4. Select the restrictions you want to add then make sure that you save all the changes as shown below:accessing downloadable productsAdding Licensing & Copyright

This will be the outcome after adding Licensing and Copyright to allow access to file URLs only when needed. This means that users will be granted access only after payment. Additionally, users need to select the download type as indicated below:

Conclusion

In this post, we have highlighted how you can sell digital downloadable products with WooCommerce. We have looked at the basics of your strategy and the actual implementation. By now, you should be able to create your products and even set up licensing restrictions. We hope that you learned something new in this post.

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