Everything you need to know to resell digital products online

It is estimated that 2.04 billion people will buy products or services online this year. The Internet has revolutionized the way we buy and sell things as well as what we buy and sell. Products are no longer only physical, tangible assets that arrive on our doorstep in a cardboard box. We want more economical ways to hoard our prized possessions.

As we slowly move more aspects of our lives online, we begin to value digital products as much as, if not more than, physical products. They are easier to obtain, store, and access. More importantly, they are way easier to sell and resell.

What are digital products?

Digital products are any digital goods that you can sell or otherwise distribute online. These products are inexhaustible resources as you can never run out of sellable items. Once you obtain a product, you can resell it to as many buyers as you wish and as many times as you want. In other words, there’s no need to replenish your inventory as it can never run dry.

These items come in different formats, and you can stream them, make them available for download, or even turn them into physical products. The truth is anyone can become a digital products reseller because it requires almost zero effort.

What are the advantages of reselling digital products?

When you resell physical products, there are so many things to think about, such as:

• Logistics and planning

• Storing spaces

• Organizing shipping

• Inventory checking, and more.

Your upfront costs for obtaining the product can be enormous, and if your business venture fails, you’ll lose a lot of money. You probably won’t be able to check every individual item. If your product is faulty, you’ll have to give refunds and make amends by giving discounts or complimentary items. 

If you choose to resell digital products, you won’t have to worry about any of this. Here are some advantages of reselling digital goods:

1. Low overall costs

2. Passive income

3. Infinite scalability

4. No worries about logistics

5. You get a flexible product

Low overall costs

If you decide to sell some kind of a digital product online, you’ll probably have to pay a small fee to get the resale right. That’s about all you’ll have to pay for. There are no shipping costs, no fees for holding inventory, and no warehouse insurance costs. You won’t have to replenish your inventory, so there are no recurring costs for new goods. Your initial investment will be so small that you’ll get to retain any profit you make from sales.

Passive income

The best thing about reselling digital products is the fact that once you set up shop, you won’t have to do anything anymore but collect the profit. You won’t have to invest any time in servicing your customers. Once they pay for the item, it is usually available for download instantly. There’s nothing to package and ship. If your first couple of sales are successful, you can rest assured that subsequent ones will be too. This is why reselling digital products can make for a great side income.

Infinite scalability

As we’ve mentioned, there is no finite number of items in stock with digital goods. One item can be sold an infinite number of times to an infinite number of buyers. You and your marketing efforts are solely responsible for how much (or little) you manage to sell.

No worries about logistics

You won’t have to wrap your head around complicated logistics. You don’t need to think about:

• Where to stock your products

• How to package them

• How to ship them

• What to do if a shipment never arrives, etc.

You get a flexible product

Digital products are extremely flexible and can be used in numerous ways. Apart from reselling them, you can integrate them into your business for other purposes. For example, you can offer them for free in your lead generation efforts or give limited access to them for a monthly subscription.

Challenges of reselling digital products

Even though starting a digital products reseller business is relatively easy and inexpensive, there are some challenges you need to consider:

1. Marketing your product is not easy

2. Your product competes with free content

3. Your product is susceptible to theft

Marketing your product

You can obtain a product easily, but it is your job to market it properly. Before you even get a product to resell, do some research about the most popular kinds of content in the market. Once you get the right kind of content that has great sales potential, you need to make sure to find the right platform to sell it. Your website should be easy to navigate, intuitive to use, and inviting.

Your product competes with free content

This is yet another reason why you have to carefully market your product. There is probably plenty of similar content out there for free, so you need to convince your customers that you offer great value and that your brand is reliable.

Your product is susceptible to theft

You need to ensure that your product is not copied and resold without your permission. You may need to invest in tools to fight piracy.

Most popular digital products to resell

There are so many options when it comes to selling digital products that it’s hard to decide what to go for. There are a couple of products that are bound to sell well. They are the following:

1. Ebooks

2. Software

3. Videos

Ebooks

Ebooks are probably the most popular digital products to resell. You can resell ebooks on various topics, but the most important thing is to choose a niche and stick to it. You need to target a specific group of people who would come back for more. Try anything you like, from books for Tolkien fans to home gardening.

Beginner resellers often make a mistake of offering various books they personally like, but this (lack of) strategy is doomed to failure. If your selection of titles is random, then at best, you’ll attract an odd reader here and there. This way, even those who buy a book or two won’t have a proper incentive to come back. 

There are various sites where you can buy ebooks to resell, and one of the best among them is Buy Quality PLR. You can narrow down your search and purchase the ones that interest you.

Software

Software is becoming an increasingly popular digital product to resell. If you want to sell software because it is profitable, but you are not a programmer nor a developer, you can still do so. There are many white label software providers who give you the option to resell their products under your brand while they provide full technical support to your customers.

If you go for software, you are bound to succeed since everything runs on it. It is completely different from ebooks regarding the target audience. Most of the audience will be the same or similar for all different kinds of software—small and medium-sized businesses.

If you want to focus on a specific type of software, we recommend software as a service (SaaS). More than 80% of businesses already use at least one SaaS app. According to research by Blissfully, companies spend more money on SaaS than they do on laptops. At Sell SaaS, you can choose from a variety of SaaS products in our marketplace, and launch your business in less than a minute.

Videos

There are tons of videos online which you can get at a more than reasonable price and then resell. With so many free videos available across the Internet, you need to think carefully about the video content people would pay for. These are usually things people don’t trust YouTube tutorials about.

If you check out sites that offer videos for resale, you’ll notice that the majority offer video courses of some kind. Among them, you can also find how-to videos, tips and tricks, and any material that customers believe would give them valuable expert insights that they can’t find elsewhere. You can even combine these with ebooks.

A popular platform where you can download a variety of videos to resell is InDigitalWorks. You can find over 1,700 videos there and pick a theme for your online shop.

The difference between private label rights, master resell rights, and resell rights

If you’ve already scouted a couple of websites looking for content to resell, you’ve probably stumbled upon the following abbreviations: PLR, MRR, and RR. These are resale licenses that determine the extent of your rights when reselling a product. Here is what they mean.

Private label rights (PLR)

PLR license gives you the most freedom with handling a product you want to resell. If you’re a private label reseller of digital products, you can modify them as you wish, rebrand them, and present them as your own product. You cannot claim the copyright as the product is available to other resellers as well.

This license allows you to sell and resell the product, and with unrestricted private label products, you can even resell the same resell rights to your customers.

Master resell rights (MRR)

If you decide to sell digital products with master resell rights, you can resell them as much as you like. You can also sell the right to sell the product to your clients. This license is different from the previous one in that it doesn’t allow you to modify the product in any way or claim ownership.

You will most often encounter this kind of license as it is the most popular one online.

Resell rights (RR)

This type of license is the most rigid one. Digital products with resell rights can be sold on to your customers without making any alterations. You can’t sell the products’ resell rights to your customers. This means that you get to sell the digital products without making any changes, and your customers can’t resell them any further.

Here’s a table to make it easier to understand the differences between these licenses:

How to resell digital products online

Here are the steps you need to take in order to become a reseller of digital products:

• Decide what you want to sell

• Apply for a membership with the appropriate site

• Test the products yourself

• Find a platform to resell your digital products

Decide what you want to sell

This step is pretty straightforward. If you don’t already know what you want to sell, check out your options above and go for what you prefer or believe could be the most profitable. Make sure you choose a niche and not set up a shop of random products with no clear target audience.

Apply for a membership

Sites that offer resale products usually require you to sign up for a membership with them. Once you become a member, you’ll probably have to pay a small fee for it. Many of these sites offer free instructions on how to use them and all the materials you may need to resell products. 

Before you sign up with a site, make sure that they are reputable by inspecting their website and reading reviews. A reliable site will be well-organized and safe to use, and it will come with regular updates. Once you determine they are safe, download the products you want to sell.

Test the products yourself

If possible, you should test the product yourself. This way, you’ll know what to market and how to market it. You’ll also find out if your product has a secret fault. If it’s an ebook, for example, read through it to see if it is complete and no pages are missing. If it’s software and you don’t know much about it, you’ll have to rely on your provider. That’s why checking your client’s reputation is essential.

Find a platform to resell your digital products

Where to resell your digital products is not an issue at all. It depends on your business plans and ideas. If you already have an ecommerce business, you can simply add your new products to your online store. If you run a different kind of business but want to offer your clients the opportunity to buy valuable digital products, you can add them to your existing website.

If you’re starting a reselling business from scratch, some digital product providers can help you launch your business quickly and hassle-free. There are also many platforms where you can set up your store and sell your digital downloads.

Platforms to resell digital products

Some of the platforms that can help you can resell digital products include:

1. Sellfy

2. SendOwl

3. Easy Digital Downloads

4. Selz

5. DPD

Sellfy

Sellfy is an ecommerce platform that can help you easily resell your products. You can sell the products directly through the store or from your website. You’ll have access to basic email marketing and analytics options. The platform is affordable and simple to use. It’s great if you’re a small business that wants nothing fancy. 

SendOwl

SendOwl is perfect if you just want to sell products on your existing site. You can’t set up a separate online store—everything goes through already existing channels. Your customers can buy items through unique links generated for each of the products or by clicking on CTA buttons that say something like “Buy Now.” The tool has a great feature for sending abandoned cart emails, which is a great addition.

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is a great solution for WordPress. You use it by installing it as a plug-in to your WordPress. It allows for unlimited file downloads, and it offers a neat dashboard to help you keep up with your stats and reports.

Selz

Selz offers a single, fully equipped platform to help you create a custom store from scratch. If you want to start a reseller business from zero, this is an all-round solution for you. Among their features, you can find website builders, SEO options, a built-in CRM, and many more. You can also protect each sold copy by stamping them with the buyer’s info.

DPD

Digital Product Delivery or DPD is another easy-to-use platform. You can set up multiple stores through only one account, sell through multiple channels, and stamp your products to protect them from piracy. The tools are affordable, and you can get a 30-day trial for free.