- There are costs linked to production or creation
- You need storage space
- You need to be able to send your products by mail which costs and limits the radius for your potential customers
Selling physical products means that you have basic costs that you need to cover before you make a profit. Each product costs you before you can sell it.
The advantages of digital products
Another solution is to sell digital products. These can be anything that comes in a computer readable file. The big advantages of digital products are the following:
- Everybody can create a file (ebook, music, video, image, software, online course,...)
- A digital product is produced once but can be sold several times
- No shipping costs, the whole world is your potential customer
There are many reasons that speak for selling digital products rather than physical products.
If everybody can create files that can be potential digitial products, it gets more complicated when you want to actually find a way to sell them. Most platforms that offer to sell your digital goods ask for monthly fees or take a big chunk of your sales.
Of course you can always create your own shop with wordpress but again you will need to create the website and pay for the hosting.
From the file to the product
I have been trying for a long time to find solutions to sell digital products online without any recurring costs. I've discovered a very simple solution how all your files can become digital products in no time!
You may know the blockchain based video platform lbry.tv. It is a platform where you can host videos and you can get tips from other people in the form of LBC which is a crypto currency that can be exchanged on platforms like bittrex.
I found out however that lbry allows you to upload all kind of file formats. You can upload pdf files, mp3 music files, videos of course but also images. In addition to that, when you upload a file, you have the possibility to make it paid content. To be able to watch or download this content a user will have to pay. You can define a price in USD or LBC.
The only negative aspect I saw is that you need to install the application to download the files. This may discourage people from buying your digital products.
Create your digital product in a couple of minutes
- Create a video, music, an ebook, an image, a photo that you want to sell
- Sign up with lbry.tv
- Upload your file to lbry and describe the content as well as possible
- Define the sales price
- Inform your potential customers and stake your product with LBC so that it is found easier on Lbry
