Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Why Digital Products are a Game-Changer for Shopify Merchants
- Structured Online Courses: The Gold Standard of Digital Goods
- Membership Sites and Gated Communities
- Ebooks and Comprehensive Guides
- Digital Templates and Productivity Tools
- Creative Assets: Photography, Music, and Presets
- Overcoming Challenges: Piracy and Trust
- The Technical Edge: Native Shopify Integration
- Maximizing Revenue: Upselling and Bundling
- Strategic Pricing: The Unlimited Advantage
- Launching Your First Digital Product
- The Future of E-Commerce is Hybrid
- Conclusion
- FAQ
Introduction
The global e-learning market is projected to reach a staggering $460 billion by 2030. While physical retail continues to thrive, a quiet revolution is happening within the Shopify ecosystem: merchants are realizing that their most valuable inventory isn't stored in a warehouse, but in their expertise. Consider the traditional merchant selling coffee beans; while their physical margins are squeezed by shipping costs and packaging, a "Barista Home Basics" video course offers a high-margin upsell that requires zero warehouse space and costs nothing to deliver. This shift represents more than just a new trend; it is a fundamental move toward increasing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and establishing recurring revenue stability.
In this guide, we will explore what are some digital products to sell that can transform your current business model. We will cover everything from structured online courses and exclusive memberships to downloadable templates and creative assets. Beyond just a list of ideas, we will dive into the strategic advantages of selling digital goods, how to protect your intellectual property, and why keeping your customers on your own branded URL is critical for long-term success.
At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse. We believe that you should own your customer data and brand experience entirely. By the end of this article, you will have a clear roadmap for diversifying your revenue streams with digital products that live natively alongside your physical catalog.
Why Digital Products are a Game-Changer for Shopify Merchants
When merchants ask what are some digital products to sell, they are often looking for ways to escape the "hamster wheel" of physical inventory management. Digital products offer a unique set of advantages that physical goods simply cannot match. First and foremost is the concept of "Build Once, Sell Forever." Once a digital asset—be it a guide, a course, or a template—is created, it can be sold an infinite number of times without incurring additional production costs.
Furthermore, the profit margins for digital products typically hover between 90% and 95%. Without the need for raw materials, storage fees, or international shipping logistics, almost every dollar earned goes straight to your bottom line. This scalability allows you to reach a global audience instantly. Whether your customer is in New York or Nairobi, they can access your product the second their payment is processed.
Beyond the financial metrics, digital products are powerful tools for building brand loyalty. They allow you to transition from being a mere vendor to a trusted authority or educator in your niche. When a customer buys a yoga mat from you, they have a tool; when they buy a 30-day guided yoga program through your store, they have a transformation. This deeper engagement is what drives repeat purchases and builds a sustainable community.
Structured Online Courses: The Gold Standard of Digital Goods
Online courses are arguably the most impactful digital product you can offer. They allow you to package your specialized knowledge into a digestible, step-by-step format. Whether you are an expert in gardening, software development, or gourmet cooking, there is an audience willing to pay for a curated learning experience.
Video-Based Learning
Video courses are highly engaging and often command the highest price points. By creating a curriculum that includes high-quality video modules, you provide a "face" to your brand. With Tevello, you can host these videos seamlessly, ensuring that your students enjoy a professional playback experience without ever leaving your store. We offer all the key features for courses and communities to make this transition effortless.
Drip Content and Quizzes
To prevent student burnout and ensure information retention, many successful merchants use "drip" scheduling. This means releasing modules over time—perhaps one per week. Supplementing these videos with quizzes helps validate the learning process and adds an interactive element that justifies a premium price.
Professional and Hobbyist Niches
Don't assume your niche is too small. From "How to Train Your Border Collie" to "Mastering Advanced Excel for Financial Analysts," specific niches often perform better than broad, generic topics because they address very specific pain points.
Membership Sites and Gated Communities
If you are looking for recurring revenue stability, a membership model is the answer. Instead of a one-time transaction, customers pay a monthly or annual fee for ongoing access to exclusive content, a community forum, or monthly live sessions.
Key Strategy: The goal of a membership is to build a "sticky" ecosystem where the value of staying (the community and fresh content) outweighs the cost of the subscription.
Memberships thrive on exclusivity. This might include:
- Member Directories: Allowing users to connect with one another.
- Social Feeds: A private space for discussion away from the distractions of mainstream social media.
- Monthly Resources: New templates, checklists, or "office hours" with the founder.
By integrating these features directly into your Shopify store, you maintain a unified brand experience. You don't have to worry about the friction of third-party platforms where users might lose their login credentials or get distracted by other creators. Our predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees ensures that as your community grows from 100 to 10,000 members, your overhead remains manageable.
Ebooks and Comprehensive Guides
For those who prefer writing over video production, ebooks are a fantastic entry point into the digital product world. Ebooks are versatile; they can serve as "lead magnets" to grow your email list or as standalone paid products.
When considering what are some digital products to sell in the written format, think about "problem-solution" frameworks. A 50-page guide on "The Mediterranean Diet for Busy Professionals" provides immediate, actionable value. The key to a successful ebook isn't just the information—which might be available for free on blogs—but the curation and structure. People pay for the time saved by having all the right information in one organized place.
Ebooks also allow for easy cross-selling. For example, a merchant selling high-end art supplies could sell an ebook titled "10 Techniques for Masterful Watercolor Landscapes." This not only generates direct revenue but also encourages the customer to use the physical supplies they purchased from the same store. To see the potential of this model, look at how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses and digital guides with their physical craft kits.
Digital Templates and Productivity Tools
We live in an era of "optimization." People are constantly looking for ways to work faster and organize their lives better. This has created a massive market for digital templates.
Notion and Airtable Templates
Notion has become a powerhouse for personal and professional organization. If you have designed a system for tracking finances, managing a content calendar, or organizing a household, you can sell that exact structure as a template.
Canva and Design Templates
Not as a designer, but as a facilitator. Many small business owners need professional-looking Instagram posts, resumes, or presentation decks but lack the time to design them from scratch. Providing "plug-and-play" Canva templates is a high-demand service that requires very little maintenance once the initial designs are complete.
Spreadsheet and Financial Tools
For B2B niches, Excel or Google Sheets templates are incredibly valuable. A "Real Estate Investment Calculator" or a "Small Business Tax Tracker" solves a complex problem with a simple digital file. These products are often highly "viral" within professional circles, leading to organic growth through word-of-mouth.
Creative Assets: Photography, Music, and Presets
If you are a creative professional, your "scrapped" or "extra" work can often be turned into a revenue stream.
- Stock Photography: While large marketplaces exist, selling high-quality, niche-specific stock photos directly on your site allows you to keep more of the profit.
- Lightroom Presets: Influencers and amateur photographers are always looking for a specific "look." Selling a pack of photo editing presets is a classic example of a low-friction digital product.
- Audio Assets: This includes everything from background music for YouTubers to sound effects for game developers and even meditation tracks.
The creative asset market is heavily focused on "Social Proof." Displaying "Before and After" shots for presets or providing audio snippets for music tracks is essential for building the trust needed to convert a visitor into a buyer. This is a great example of generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers through high-value digital add-ons that enhance their core purchase.
Overcoming Challenges: Piracy and Trust
Selling digital goods isn't without its hurdles. Two of the most common concerns are piracy and the "intangibility" factor.
Combatting Piracy
Since digital files are easily shared, some merchants fear their work will be stolen. While it is impossible to prevent 100% of piracy, you can deter it by using tools like license keys, expiring download links, and, most importantly, by providing a superior experience. Most people pay for convenience and support. If your course is hosted in a beautiful, easy-to-use member area on your Shopify store, users are far less likely to seek out a clunky, pirated version.
Building Value for Intangible Goods
Because customers cannot touch a digital product, they may hesitate to value it as highly as a physical one. You can overcome this by:
- Offering Samples: Provide the first module of a course or a "lite" version of a template for free.
- Using High-Quality Mockups: Even though it's a digital file, use visuals that make it look like a physical book or a boxed software set.
- Highlighting Reviews: Social proof is the strongest currency in digital sales. Seeing that others have successfully used your guide to achieve a result builds immediate credibility.
If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.
The Technical Edge: Native Shopify Integration
One of the biggest mistakes digital entrepreneurs make is "frankingsteining" their business together. They might use one platform for their website, another for their email list, and a third for their course hosting. This leads to what we call "Login Friction." When a customer has to manage three different accounts just to access a product they bought from you, the chances of them reaching out to support (or asking for a refund) skyrocket.
By using a solution that offers "Native Shopify Integration," you eliminate this friction. Your customers use the same login they used to buy their physical goods to access their digital ones. This keeps them on your URL, reinforcing your brand identity every time they log in. Furthermore, it ensures that your digital products that live directly alongside physical stock share the same checkout and payment gateways, which are already optimized for conversion.
This approach also gives you full control over your customer data. In a world where third-party cookies are disappearing, owning your first-party data—knowing exactly who is buying what and how they are engaging with your content—is the ultimate competitive advantage. You can see strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively that demonstrate how this data-driven approach leads to better marketing and higher sales.
Maximizing Revenue: Upselling and Bundling
The real magic of digital products happens when you combine them with your existing offerings. You should never view digital products as a replacement for physical goods, but as an amplifier.
The Hybrid Bundle
Consider a merchant selling organic seeds. They could sell a "Spring Planting Bundle" that includes physical seeds, a physical trowel, and a digital "Mastering the Home Garden" video course. This increases the Average Order Value (AOV) significantly without adding much to the shipping weight.
Post-Purchase Upsells
After a customer buys a physical product, the "Thank You" page is prime real estate. If they just bought a professional camera, offering them a digital guide on "Night Sky Photography" at a discounted price for the next 10 minutes is a highly effective way to drive incremental revenue. We have seen merchants find great success with retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases by simply offering the right digital solution at the right moment in the customer journey.
Strategic Pricing: The Unlimited Advantage
When it comes to pricing your digital products, many platforms punish your success. They charge "success fees," taking 5% or 10% of every sale, or they move you to a more expensive tier once you reach a certain number of students. We believe this is inherently unfair to the merchant.
At Tevello, we offer The Unlimited Plan for just $29.99 per month. This plan includes:
- Unlimited courses and students.
- Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth.
- Full community features (profiles, member directories).
- 0% transaction fees.
This means that whether you make $100 or $100,000 this month, your costs remain fixed. This allows you to plan your marketing spend with confidence, knowing exactly what your margins will be. Using a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members is the most sustainable way to scale a digital business.
Launching Your First Digital Product
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities, the best approach is to start small. You don't need a 50-module masterclass to get started.
- Identify a "Quick Win": What is one problem your customers face that you can solve in a 15-minute video or a 5-page PDF?
- Validate the Demand: Use your Instagram Stories or email list to ask your audience if they would be interested in a specific topic.
- Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Don't aim for perfection. A well-lit video shot on an iPhone is better than a perfect video that is never released.
- Install the Infrastructure: You can start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now to see how the interface works.
- Market to Your Existing Customers: Your first sales should come from the people who already trust you. Send a dedicated email to your current customers offering an "Early Bird" discount.
By starting with a "Mini-Course" or a "Quick-Start Guide," you can learn the ropes of digital delivery without the pressure of a massive launch. As you gather feedback, you can refine your content and eventually build toward more comprehensive offerings.
The Future of E-Commerce is Hybrid
The distinction between "online stores" and "online schools" is blurring. Today’s most successful brands are those that provide both the tools (physical products) and the knowledge (digital products) to succeed. This hybrid model creates a moat around your business that is very difficult for competitors to cross.
When you sell a digital product, you are selling more than just a file; you are selling an outcome. Whether that outcome is a more organized life, a new skill, or a sense of belonging in a community, the value you provide is immense. By leveraging the power of Shopify and the native capabilities of Tevello, you can build a business that is not only profitable but also resilient and deeply connected to its audience.
As you consider your next move, remember that the most successful digital products are born from a genuine desire to help your customers. When you focus on delivering value, the revenue naturally follows. Our team is here to support you in seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify so you can focus on what you do best: creating and teaching.
Conclusion
Diversifying your Shopify store with digital products is one of the smartest strategic moves you can make in 2026. By exploring what are some digital products to sell—from courses and memberships to ebooks and templates—you unlock high-margin revenue streams that scale effortlessly. Remember, the key to success lies in maintaining your brand integrity, owning your customer data, and providing a seamless user experience.
At Tevello, we are dedicated to helping you turn your expertise into a thriving digital ecosystem. With our simple, all-in-one pricing of $29.99/month and 0% transaction fees, you keep 100% of what you earn. There are no hidden tiers or per-user fees to worry about as your community grows.
To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.
FAQ
1. Do I need to be a technical expert to sell digital products on Shopify?
No. While some platforms require complex integrations or coding, modern tools are designed for merchants of all technical levels. If you can navigate the Shopify admin, you can set up a digital product. Many solutions offer drag-and-drop course builders and automated delivery systems that handle the technical heavy lifting for you.
2. How do I prevent people from sharing my digital products for free?
While total prevention is difficult, you can significantly reduce unauthorized sharing by hosting your content in a secure, login-protected member area. By providing additional value that can't be pirated—such as access to a community forum, live Q&A sessions, or personalized support—you give customers a reason to purchase the official version rather than seeking out a stolen file.
3. Can I sell both physical and digital products in the same transaction?
Absolutely. In fact, this is one of the most effective ways to increase your average order value. You can create "Hybrid Bundles" that combine a physical item with a supporting digital course or guide. Because everything is handled within your Shopify checkout, the customer experiences a single, seamless transaction.
4. What is the best way to price my first digital product?
A common strategy is to start with a "Low-Ticket" offer (between $7 and $27) to build trust and lower the barrier to entry. As you establish your authority and collect positive reviews, you can introduce "High-Ticket" products like comprehensive masterclasses or monthly memberships that command higher price points. Always research your niche to ensure your pricing aligns with market expectations.


