Your online store opens when you add a Store widget to your project. Then, you set up a catalog and manage its products (read more about it in our Managing Products article). 

You can sell both tangible goods and digital products. Digital or downloadable products include software, ebooks, photos, music, video tutorials, and more. All these files can be downloaded via unique links.

Adding a digital product

It is possible to add several files under one product and an unlimited number of attached files. 

To add a digital product to your online store, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Catalog — Products from your Store Manager.
  2. Click a product to edit or create a new one.
  3. Disable Requires shipping or pickup in the General tab.
  4. Open the Files tab.
  5. Click + Upload Files.
  6. Hit Choose file in the popup.
  7. Choose a file on your computer.
  8. Click + to upload additional files.
  9. Press Upload Files.
  10.  Fill in the file description.
  11.  Click Save.
Important:

You can upload files of 100 MB (if you’re on the Basic Store pricing plan), 1 GB (for the Business Store subscription), and 10 GB (for the Unlimited Store plan). You can find more information about the further use of the Store widget in the article about its paid plans.

And that’s all! As soon as you get your payment for a digital product and the order status turns to Paid, customers automatically receive a download link. 

Disabling shipping for a digital product

If you sell digital goods or services, you need to disable shipping for them. In that case, the shipping portion of the checkout process is automatically subtracted at the end of checkout. The only exception is for the carts with both physical and downloadable products.

You need to do the following to disable shipping:

  1. Go to Catalog — Products from your Store Manager.
  2. Choose a digital product you need to modify.
  3. Open the Tax and Shipping tab.
  4. In This Product Requires Shipping or Pickup section, toggle the button to disable shipping.
  5. Click Save.

After successfully completing checkout, customers receive an email notification with a link to the item they purchased.

Note:

For your clients to receive download links, make sure that the Download Egoods notification in your Store Manager is enabled. To do so, go to Settings —  Notifications.

Protecting download links

You can prevent your clients from sharing links with outsiders in two ways: 

  1. Limit a link lifetime. In this case, the link automatically expires after a certain period of time you specify. 
  2. Limit the number of downloads per link. In this scenario, clients can download the link a certain number of times.

If you want to set these limits, you can do it this way:

  1. From your Store Manager, go to Settings — General — Cart & Checkout.
  2. Scroll down to the E-goods section.
  3. Fill in a number of hours and/or download attempts.

There is also the option for store administrators to manually regenerate or terminate a link on the Order details page. In the case of regeneration, customers receive a new link. If there’s a termination, a link becomes useless immediately.

Examples of limits:

  • Lifetime — 24 hours; the number of download attempts is empty. Customers can get the link within 24 hours and download the product an unlimited number of times.
  • Lifetime — empty; there are two download attempts. Customers can get the link without any time limits and download the product two times only.
  • Lifetime — 72 hours; there are three download attempts. Customers can get the link within 72 hours and download the product three times per order.

Offering digital products for free

Of course, you can let clients download digital products for free. This is the case when you want to share sample files (audios, videos, etc.) or provide instructions on using other products from your store.

You can offer free digital goods in two ways:

  1. Create a product with zero price; your customers pay nothing when they place an order. 
  2. Add a download link directly to the product description; your customers needn’t place an order at all. 

To create a zero price product: 

  1. From your Store Manager, go to Settings — General — Cart & Checkout.
  2. Scroll down to the Checkout Settings section.

Turn Default payment status for orders with zero total to Paid.

To add a link directly, do the following: 

  1. Upload your file to any free or paid hosting service. 
  2. Add a link to the file in your product description.
Caution!

If you choose this option, you can’t see the downloads in the orders list.

Placing a test order

When you create your digital product, you can place a test order to check it in operation. 

Note:

To get a download link, change the order status to Paid.

Downloading product as a customer

When the order status turns to Paid, customers receive the download link automatically. They can see it right on the Thank you for your order page if they pay online.

Next, they can get an email with the link for downloading the purchased product.

The download link is also available in a customer’s account in your online store.

Note:

If connectivity issues interrupt a download, the file resumes downloading automatically when the connection reestablishes. To ensure a smooth flow, the number of downloads mustn’t be limited.

We hope this digital products’ overview was helpful for you.

Now, it’s time to offer digital products in your online store and manage them as you wish.

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