Digital products occupy a large portion of e-commerce markets, because they are the least expensive in terms of production and storage, and they are sustainable products that do not require shipping options, and thus they can be resold on a wide geographical scale.
Digital products need to adjust some settings while uploading them to your online store, and the matter is simple and straightforward, especially if you rely on a WooCommerce store, as we will discuss during the article how to deal with and upload digital products to WooCommerce.
Why offer digital products in your store
Digital products are intangible products that can be downloaded and shared online, and they are considered one of the most prominent options that entrepreneurs can start with in the field of e-commerce, for several reasons as follows:
- Low initial production costs.
- You do not need a warehouse that carries additional costs to the project.
- Providing products over a wide geographical scope because they do not require custom shipping options.
- The possibility of reselling digital products in an unlimited number at the same production cost.
- Easier to manage sales and follow up with customers.
Digital products also provide unlimited options for e-entrepreneurs, such as digital books, online courses, online services, memberships, podcast recordings, paid videos, paid templates and plugins, and more.
Selling digital products through a WooCommerce store
The WooCommerce add-on provides the ability to upload digital products with multiple options and in a simple way. First, you log into your store’s control panel. If you do not own an online store, you can review the article explaining WooCommerce to create an integrated online store – step by step first. After you have a WordPress site that uses the WooCommerce plugin, you will do the following:
- Log in to the WordPress control panel .
- Choose the Products option from the main menu.
- Choose to add a new product.
After entering the new product page, you begin writing the product details, starting with the name and then a detailed product description, as shown in the following image:
After that, you go to the product side menu and add the following basic options:
- The featured product image that appears on the main product page.
- Product photo gallery, which includes pictures of the product showing all the details.
- Define product classification for easy access and organization of products.
- Determine product labels.
Then, you scroll down to select the product type, and you must choose a simple product until the digital product options appear and are divided into the following:
- Default product : This command is activated by default for all digital products in general.
- Downloadable Product : This command is reserved for downloadable products only e.g. e-books, videos, etc.
When you activate the default product option, the shipping options will automatically be hidden along with the product data list.
After that, you specify the price of the digital product from the default price option, then you determine the price of the digital product after the discount, and you can leave that field empty, and you can schedule the beginning and end period of the sale throughout the year automatically from the schedule button, as shown in the following image:
The options for downloadable files are then defined as follows:
- Download files that can be downloaded from your computer or uploaded to the cloud from a direct link, and you can add more than one file to a single product.
- Specifies download limits, which can be left blank to allow the product to be downloaded without restrictions.
- Specify the download expiration period, which represents the end of the customer’s ability to download, and can be left blank to enable the customer to download for life.
After that, you choose inventory from the product data list, and here it represents the permissible limits for subscriptions or sales in your store, not inventory in the traditional form. If there are no limits for subscriptions in your store, you can bypass this option, but if there is a maximum limit of subscriptions or available versions, you adjust The following options:
- Identify the SKU code you need to organize store products and get quick product sales reports.
- Determine the maximum number of digital products or subscriptions allowed on your store.
- Activate the pre-order option in the case of advertisements for pre-orders.
- Determine the maximum purchase limit per purchase.
You then access the Related Products option from the product data list and select the products that are recommended while purchasing the product, and the marketing products that appear as an alternative option on the digital product page, as shown in the following image:
You can then adjust product attribute settings if there is more than one different skin for the digital product, then advanced product settings, for example the purchase note that appears to the customer, the order of the product in the product list, or enabling and disabling reviews.
After you finish entering and adjusting all the previous digital product settings, you go to the top again and click Publish or Schedule, and the digital product will be published on your store.
Protecting digital products on WooCommerce:
The WooCommerce add-on provides moderate protection for protecting digital products, but it is sufficient at the beginning of your online project. First of all, you must limit the number of times you download downloadable files, for example, 3 times on average for one customer. It is also preferable to restrict the customer’s membership to a period commensurate with the length of the product content. .
The next step: Access to downloadable products must be blocked immediately after payment and wait until the order status is converted from under review to completed. It is also preferable to request a login in order to access digital products, and you can do this through the following steps:
- Choose Woocommerce from the WordPress main menu.
- Then choose settings.
- Choose the Products tab from the top menu.
- Choose downloadable products from the top bar of the internal menu.
- Activating the download option requires login.
- Deactivate the option to grant access to downloadable products immediately after payment.
After that, you save the settings by clicking Save Changes as shown in the following image:
It is preferable to manually monitor customers for the number of downloads of digital files, and block customers whose number of downloads exceeds the normal rate, or manually restrict the number of downloads as well as the expiration period for access to files, through the following steps:
- Choose Woocommerce from the WordPress main menu.
- Then choose orders.
- Sort customers based on number of downloads.
- Access customer orders with a high download rate and then examine the product access report as shown in the following image:
When relying on digital products with direct visual or written content on the Internet, for example, online courses, you need a more advanced degree of security, and you can review the article How to protect paid videos on your educational platform from theft.
In this way, you can rely on the WooCommerce platform to upload digital products, control all customization and pricing options, in addition to applying all available protection and access restriction standards to protect the contents of digital products from theft, and we have reached the conclusion of the article.
