Most digital creators start selling digital products with little prior knowledge or experience, which is perfectly okay. I firmly believe anyone can make a great digital product business resulting in scalable passive income.
However, there are always things that you can look back on and improve to save yourself a headache and help your Etsy shop succeed faster. Here are the seven things I wish I knew before selling digital products online.
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- Increase the Number of Listings
The more listings you have in your Etsy shop, the more opportunities you have to make a sale.
A larger number of high-quality listings:
- Makes your store look more professional and fleshed out
- Gives your listings more chances to show up in search results
- Provides happy customers with opportunities to purchase similar products from you
- Creates more opportunities for you to bundle your products and make bigger sales
2. Create Evergreen Products
An evergreen product has long-lasting value to you as a seller because it will continue to sell for years to come. In general, skip creating highly specific products that will only sell for a limited amount of time.
For example, creating designs for iPhone cases, which frequently change in size, will limit how many sales you can make and increase your workload as you need to adjust the product’s sizing often. However, creating printables such as habit trackers that fit into an 8x11 notebook or binder will continue to be popular since this size notebook and binder is consistently sold.
3. Make Purchasing Your Digital Products a Smooth Experience
I cannot say this enough but test your digital product many times to make the buying experience as smooth as possible! While you may know how to open and use your file perfectly, you still need to take it on test drives to ensure it’s easy for others to use.
Take these steps to test your products before you list them:
- Send the products to friends, family, or others you know in the industry for feedback. Ask them if it was easy to open and use and if they have any other feedback.
- Always create your product in the most updated software version, but take a moment to save it in previous versions as well so that buyers with a previous version of the software can still easily access the product.
- Double-check everything about your product: the spelling, visual elements, fonts, copyrights of any third-party content, and more.
- Include specific instructions in your product listings on how to use your product. While everyone may not read the descriptions (or hardly some at all it seems), it is good to have them posted in case a situation arises later if someone is complaining about not knowing how to use the files.
4. Protect Your Products Legally
When someone buys your digital product, they typically have the entirety of your content, which is why strict Terms of Use boundaries and licenses are essential.
Create a detailed Terms of Use Agreement to protect your business and work. This agreement will detail whether or not customers can resell a product commercially.
For example, if you create gift tags or wine label templates, you may be okay with someone adding this to a physical product they are selling at a local craft fair. However, you probably aren’t alright with them reposting the label in their own Etsy shop and reselling it, so make this clear in the Terms of Use Agreement.
For other products, like digital spreadsheet products, you will probably want to specify that it’s for personal use only, so sharing the spreadsheet or making copies for friends and family would be breaking this agreement.
5. Not Preparing for Others Reselling Your Files
After many years of selling digital products, I can’t tell you how many times someone has stolen my work to sell it in their own shop. Unfortunately, this is bound to happen to you at some point, so it’s best to prepare for this punch to the gut emotionally.
If it does happen, look into reporting the user or website for copyright infringement or send a cease and desist letter, depending on the situation. Either of these tactics usually results in the user removing your content from their shop.
6. Create Free Samples
I wish I had known this hack when I started. Give possible customers a chance to test one of your digital products before buying to increase their confidence in you as a creator.
Customers may take longer to invest in your products if there isn’t a lot of social proof, reviews, or a free sample to try out before they buy. Consider giving away a small part of your product for them to test out or give away a free digital product completely on your social media or website to drive a more significant number of sales and create a loyal customer base.
7. Be Cautious When Using Third-Party Content
Always ensure that everything you are listing is 100% original content. Copying or reselling others’ work when prohibited is breaking copyright law and is unethical.
Check with the company’s content licenses and commercial use policies for every step of your digital product creation process. For example, Canva has a detailed commercial purpose page here. If you’re using photos or fonts, always verify that they are free for commercial use and, if possible, give credit to the original artist in your listing description. Depending on the website or software, you may need to purchase a license or pay an additional fee to use the asset commercially.
In short, it’s always better to check every third-party element of your digital product to avoid messy legal troubles.
I hope this list gave you plenty of information about what to avoid when opening up your successful digital product shop and making your listings. For a complete step-by-step guide on making a six-figure income with your shop, check out Digitally Purposed.
