How to design and sell digital products
Canva Templates, Tutorials

How I Design & Sell Digital Products + Top Tips & Tools

Posted on by World of Printables

I love making digital designs, such as printables and templates that I use for myself and that others enjoy using.

Have you ever thought about creating your own digital designs? Better yet, have you ever thought about selling digital products? If so, then read on, where I’ll share with you my best tips and advice for creating digital designs and how to sell the things you create.

Here are my best tips for creating printables and digital products and advice on how to sell them:

What are digital products?

So what are digital products and digital downloads? A digital product is simply any product that can be delivered electronically, such as an e-book, a template, or a printable. A digital download is a file that you’ve designed using your favorite design tool and added to your online shop or website that you’re customers download.

Digital products have high profit margins because they only need to be created once, but can be sold a limitless amount of times, unlike physical products. Plus there are no shipping costs or costs associated with storage.

Think of digital products like emails, and physical products like letters. Letters are physical things that need to be sent, transported, and delivered by a postman. Emails on the other hand reach their destination instantly and don’t need physically transported or delivered.

Digital products are the new way of e-commerce. They’re easier to create, easy to distribute, more sustainable, and you’ll never run out of stock.

Best of all, they’re often more profitable and they’re a great way to make passive income.

How to design digital products

There are a few different tools you can use to design digital products. One of my favorites is Canva, which is an online design tool that allows you to create stunning designs and graphics.

If you’re new to Canva, don’t worry, it’s a simple to use design tool that helps you create amazing and professional-looking designs very quickly. There are many online tutorials that can help you get started with Canva.

What I use to design digital products

I love making printables and templates, it’s both enjoyable and a great way to make an extra side income. If you want to make your own designs for fun or extra money, here are some of my recommendations:

  • Canva – Simply the easiest and best design tool to create amazing designs in minutes from thousands of templates. Get a free trial and start creating!
  • Creative Market – Awesome graphics and fonts to use in your designs.
  • Design Bundles – Deals on high-quality premium designs to use in your digital products.
  • Placeit – Mockups, design templates, videos, and more – 15% off!
  • Sellfy – It’s easy to sell your printables and templates using Sellfy and far cheaper and less complex than Shopify. Just list your digital products, start selling, earn money! Free trial available.
  • Printful – Sell print-on-demand products (you design, they make & send!). Sign up for free and start an online store without inventory.
  • Skillshare – A great way to learn how to make printables, templates, use Canva, and everything creative. Thousands of classes show you how to design, sell digital products, and more. Get 1 month’s free trial and start learning now!

P.S. Are you looking for extra side income? I make a full income just from blogging part-time. See how I started this blog which also includes my easy step-by-step tutorial on how you can start a blog too.

Canva

Canva is an online design tool that can be used to create stunning graphics and designs. It’s my favorite design tool and it’s used by millions of people around the world.

It’s simple to use, even if you’re new to design, and can help you create amazing and professional-looking designs very quickly. There are many online tutorials that can help you get started with Canva.

Canva editor

Canva features include:

  • Online design tool – Create limitless professional designs with the easy drag and drop editor.
  • Video maker – edit videos for YouTube and social media.
  • Thousands of templates to use as a starting point for your creations.
  • Thousands of content, such as videos, photos, audio, and more.
  • Create presentations.
  • Screen capture – great for making tutorials and classes.
  • Background remover – great for removing backgrounds from photos and images.
  • Animation – Create cool animations and see your designs come alive.
  • Social media scheduler – Create designs with Canva that get posted to your socials on a schedule.
  • Image resizer tool

Canva has a free option that lets you create designs and a pro option that also has thousands of templates. Plus you can get 30 day free trial that unlocks all of the premium features and thousands of templates, so you can start designing amazing things right now.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Other great tools for creating digital products are Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Both Photoshop and Illustrator are desktop applications that you can purchase via subscription and download for use on your computer. Adobe applications are more complicated to use than Canva and more expensive but can offer more options and flexibility when it comes to design.

There are many online tutorials that can help you get started with Photoshop, or you can take a course or class like Beginners Guide to Adobe Photoshop : The Essentials.

The best tool for creating amazing designs

But for speed, simplicity, and a massive amount of templates, there really isn’t any competition to Canva. Canva is not only a design tool, but a massive resource featuring thousands of templates for things like planners, posters, flyers, cards, invitations, resumes, menus, and more.

You simply choose a template for what you want to create and use it as a starting point to help you quickly create new designs of your own in minutes.

Best of all, Canva is so easy to use. You don’t need to be an experienced designer to create your own designs and digital products. Canva keeps it simple, with stunning results that you’ll love.

Skillshare

There are also many classes on Skillshare that show you how to use Canva. Skillshare is an online learning community that offers classes with video tutorials on everything from business to creative arts. They have a great selection of classes on design, and you can join for as little as $10 per month.

Tip: Get 1 month free trial and start learning now! Cancel anytime.

Skillshare

You can learn everything about Canva from how to use the basic tools to create professional designs, to how to create digital products and even how to create an online course.

Check out the Skillshare class – Etsy Launch: How To Open An Etsy Shop Like A Professional Seller

NOTE: Elsewhere on the internet, there are people selling courses on how to create printables, or how to sell digital products on Etsy. But often these are significantly overpriced courses, or get-rich-quick selling digital products schemes, and certainly not good value for money. I highly recommend Skillshare, as you can learn so much more on a huge range of creative topics. Plus with the 1 month’s free trial, you don’t even need to spend a penny to start learning.

Useful Skillshare classes to learn more about designing and selling digital products include:

Sell digital products

When it comes to selling digital products, there are a few different things you need to know in order to be successful.

Selling digital products can be a great way to make extra income. You can often charge anywhere between a few dollars to up to $50 for the design that you create. There are so many types of digital products that you can create, so there’s something for everyone.

These include printables, such as calendars, planners, wall art, templates, and more, all of which can simply be printed and used by your customer straight away.

Or you can create templates that can be modified by your customers, such as resume templates, SVG files, or social media graphics.

You could also create digital downloads that are tutorials or courses, such as Photoshop tutorials, cake decorating tutorials, or online courses. These can even be made as pdf ebooks.

Best of all, don’t worry if this is all new to you, Canva helps you to create many of these things and has thousands of templates you can use as a starting point.

Examples of digital products to sell

There are many products that you can sell. Popular digital product ideas include:

  • Digital scrapbooks
  • Printables
  • Templates
  • e-books
  • Illustrations and Art
  • Logos
  • Social media graphics

Let’s look at some of these things in more detail.

Printables

Printables are a popular type of digital product. They’re printable designs that can be used by your customers straight away, without any editing or customization.

You simply design it, and once the customer has bought the product, they can print it using their home printer.

For example, we sell printable planners that our customers use which is great as they don’t have to buy new planners whenever they’ve used up the pages. They can print as often as they need to.

There are many different types of printables that you can create, including calendars, planners, checklists, wall art, cards, invitations, and much more.

I design many of the printables you’ll find on this website using Canva.

Check out these Skillshare classes on printables:

Templates

Templates are another type of digital product that can be sold. These are digital files that can be edited such as document templates, resume templates, social media graphics, SVG files, and more.

You can also design Canva templates too and there’s a huge market for them.

Tutorials or Courses

Tutorials and courses are a great type of digital product to sell. They can be in the form of pdf ebooks, video tutorials, or even online courses. These can all be created in Canva.

You can create tutorials on anything from how to use Photoshop to cake decorating and can sell them via your website or as classes on Skillshare.

eBooks

eBooks are very popular digital products and they’re easy to create. You could create a PDF ebook on any topic, such as Photoshop tutorials, cake decorating tutorials, or online courses.

You can create ebooks on anything that you are passionate about or have knowledge of. Many people simply curate existing content and rework it into an ebook that they sell on their website.

Canva even has an ebook maker so you don’t even need a different tool or have to learn something new. How amazing is that?!

Check out this interesting class on Skillshare: How to create & publish an E-book using Canva

Illustrations, Graphics, Digital Art

If you’re an artist or someone who likes design, you can create things such as logos for businesses, or illustrations for art prints. Popular graphical products on Etsy include printable stickers.

And my favorite tool for creating these? I’ll let you guess that one!

Also, check out Building a Career in Illustration: Explore Print-On-Demand | Learn with Society6

Photography

Photography is another popular digital product that can be sold on your website or various stock photography websites. It is a crowded market, but you don’t necessarily have to sell the photography. You can showcase your portfolio on places like Instagram, Google Images, and Pinterest, which can draw audience traffic to your blog, which has other methods of making you money which I’ll show you how below.

Check out this awesome Skillshare class: iPhone Photography – How to Take Pro Photos On Your iPhone

A fun way to make extra money

If you’re looking for a fun way to make some extra money, selling digital products is a great option. They’re easy to create, fun to design, and can be sold almost anywhere.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to creating digital products. If you have a creative flair and enjoy designing, then selling digital products is a great way to go.

Why sell digital products?

There are many reasons why you might want to sell digital products. Perhaps you’re a stay-at-home mom who wants to make some extra money, or maybe you’re looking for a career change and want to start your own online business. Selling digital products is a great way to do both of those things.

You can make a lot of money selling digital products and it’s not just entrepreneurs who are successful, anyone can do it.

Another great reason to sell digital products is that you can make a lot of money doing it. In fact, you can make as much money as you want. There are no limits, it just comes down to how much time you’re willing to invest into creating and selling. The more products you create, the more money you can make.

The best things about creating digital products that you sell online are that you don’t need any inventory unlike physical products, and you don’t need a brick-and-mortar store. People from all over the world can buy your digital goods 24 hours a day, even when you’re sleeping. You don’t need to manually process each and every order, as it’s done automatically for you.

Just create your designs, list them as products, grow an audience, and make extra money!

Where is the best place to sell digital products?

The great thing about digital products is that they can be sold almost anywhere. You can sell digital products online via your own website or blog (my favorite), or on marketplaces such as Etsy or Creative Market.

One of the most popular places to sell digital products is Etsy. Etsy is an online marketplace that allows you to sell your creations to buyers around the world. It’s a great place to start if you’re new to selling online, as it’s simple to set up and easy to use.

There are many things you can sell on Etsy, but digital products are one of the most popular items. In fact, many of the most popular Etsy shops are run by creators that sell digital products, such as planners, templates, printable art prints, invitations, cards, and more.

Sell on Etsy
Sell on Etsy

How to sell on Etsy

It’s easy to start selling on Etsy. Simply create an account on Etsy.com and then fill out your profile. You’ll need to add some information about yourself, such as your name, your shop name, and a brief description of what you sell.

After you’ve set up your Etsy shop, you’ll also need to set up a payment method. Etsy allows you to accept payments via PayPal, credit or debit card.

You then just list the digital products that you’ve created in your shop. You can add photos, a description, and pricing.

When you’ve created your listings, they’ll be live and available for customers to purchase.

It’s as simple as that!

Useful Skillshare classes to learn more about selling on Etsy include:

How much does it cost to sell on Etsy?

Etsy does have fees whenever you sell an item, and they charge a listing fee and a transaction fee.

The current listing fee is $0.20 per item, and the transaction fee is 3.5% of the total sale price, plus $0.25.

So, for example, if you sell a digital download for $10, you would pay a listing fee of $0.20 as well as the transaction fee which in this case would be $0.35 and $0.25, for a total of $0.80.

That’s not too bad considering that they essentially host your online shop and process each sale.

Obviously, as your shop grows and you get more sales the costs start to add up. This is why I recommend selling your digital products on your own website or blog, as the cost can be much lower, and you can also make more money by upselling other related products or via advertising or affiliate recommendations.

Overall, marketplaces like Etsy do take a larger cut of the money you make when selling your products. They do have a larger audience, but the competition is very high.

At the end of the day, the customers on Etsy are not your customers and they may not even know who you are as a creator. It’s also harder to build a brand and you have to follow their strict selling terms which change often, or you could end up losing your account and the money you’ve made.

Sell digital products on your own blog (recommended)

A blog is a great way to showcase and market the digital designs that you create. A blog is a low-cost way of getting your designs out to the world and a great way to build an audience.

As well as selling digital products that you’ve created on your blog, you can make money from your blog through a number of methods, such as displaying advertising, or affiliate marketing.

You can even create your own membership area, as we have with our Love & Pixels hub. It’s a great way to bundle your products and gives more value to your audience.

By having your own website, there are other ways that you can make money too. Such as showing display advertising on your website, affiliate marketing where you recommend products that you like and get paid a small commission, and more.

I decided to create my own blog
Create my own blog

Anyone around the world who uses the internet can visit your website on their computer or mobile devices and buy your products or click on your recommendations, so a blog is a great way to make extra money which is why many people have one.

You can start a blog very quickly and easily and it doesn’t cost much to do so which is why I decided to create my own blog.

See how I started this blog which also includes my easy step-by-step tutorial on how you can start a blog too.

Other places to sell digital products

Another way to sell your digital products is through digital download platforms. Popular platforms to sell digital downloads are Gumroad, Sellfy, and SendOwl. These platforms allow customers to purchase your products quickly and easily, and many of them offer a range of payment options too.

If you’re looking for other places to sell your digital products, there are many online marketplaces that you can explore. These include Creative Market and Creative Fabrica. Or you could sell them on your own website or blog.

You can also sell digital designs on Amazon via their Kindle store. You can upload what’s called KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and they can make your designs into physical books, planners, and kids’ activity books. This way you can reach a massive audience via the Amazon marketplace.

We sell our digital products on our own website as it’s a great way to draw an audience and you’re promoting your own website brand rather than the Etsy brand.

You could also opt for an eCommerce platform such as Shopify, which is a bit like having your own website but has the features for listing and selling your products baked into it. It also has an integrated shopping cart and checkout.

Shopify is generally more expensive than other options, as there are costs other than just the transaction costs such as monthly fees and it can be quite complicated to set up and run, so it’s generally used by bigger businesses or people with technical knowledge.

Many people sell online successfully right from their blog, as it’s easy to add products to a blog using simple addons that list products and take payments via PayPal or Stripe.

Print on demand (POD) is a service that allows you to print your designs onto physical products and have them delivered to customers. This is a great way to print your digital designs onto physical products, as there’s no need to print and ship the products yourself. You simply upload your design, set the price, and POD takes care of the rest.

You can either list the products on your website by integrating with a POD service such as Printful or Printify, which can also be used to sell them via marketplaces like Etsy.

Alternatively, you can even sell them directly on popular Print on Demand marketplaces.

Popular Print on Demand Marketplaces include:

Print on Demand lets you upload your digital designs to create physical products such as mugs, wrapping paper, t-shirts, notebooks & planners, tote bags, wall canvases and art prints, stickers, and more.

POD products are also great gifts that you can design to have made for people you love.

How to sell digital products successfully

There are a few things you can do to help increase the chances of success when selling digital products.

  1. Make sure your products are high quality

When you’re creating digital products, it’s important to make sure that they are of high quality. This means ensuring that they are well designed, easy to use, and provide value. So I recommend using tools like Canva that help you create great digital products quickly, of the right sizes and quality.

  1. Price your products appropriately

When pricing your digital products, it’s important to make sure that you’re getting a good return on investment. So I recommend pricing your products at a level that allows you to make a profit, while still being affordable for your customers. Take a look at your competitors, see what prices they are selling their products at, to give you an idea of how much you can sell yours at too.

  1. Use effective marketing techniques

In order to reach a wide audience and increase your chances of selling the products you create, you can market your products on places like social media, such as Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook, or on online marketplaces like Etsy. You can also create a website to sell your products on, which will give you more control over the sales process and allow you to sell other related products too. Promoting discount codes is a great way to drive traffic to your website and generate sales.

The best place to sell your digital products successfully is on your own website. The smartest sellers know that a website or blog helps them build a growing brand, keep more of their revenue, and have a more viable long-term future.

Start your digital design journey

By following these simple tips, you can help increase your chances of success when selling digital products. So go ahead and give it a try.

So, if you’re looking for a great way to make some extra income, selling digital products is a great option. They’re fun and easy to create, and there are many places to sell them. So why not give it a try?

If you have a creative flair and enjoy designing, then selling digital products is a great way to make some extra money. By following these simple tips, you can help increase your chances of success when selling digital products.

Conclusion

Creating digital products can be a fun and enjoyable way to way to make useful things for yourself and make some extra money on the side. You can sell your products on many popular online marketplaces such as Etsy, Creative Market, your own blog, or even on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. So, if you have a creative flair and enjoy designing, then selling digital products is a great way.

So, if you’re looking for a way to make some extra money, why not give selling digital products a try? It’s easy to get started, and the possibilities are endless. Thanks for reading!

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World of Printables

About the Authors: Ellie Watson and Don Watson are the creative minds behind World of Printables. They are both professional graphic designers with over 30 years of combined experience in the graphic design industry and have dedicated their careers to crafting beautiful and practical printables. Through their articles, they share their expertise and insights to help readers make the most of these printable designs. Whether it's printable planners, calendars, templates, or educational worksheets, Ellie and Don are passionate about adding value to your life through their printable creations. Stay inspired and organized with Ellie and Don's expert tips and designs at World of Printables. Learn more.

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AI TRANSPARENCY: Whilst the majority of our creations have been created completely traditionally, occasionally we utilize AI tools in our design process. We acknowledge the advancements in AI technology and leverage them responsibly to optimize our creative output. However, it is important to note that our utilization of AI does not compromise the human element of our work. Our commitment to delivering high-quality designs through a balanced integration of traditional expertise and AI enhancements remains paramount.