Digital products

Many store owners sell physical products such as shirts and mugs. But you can also sell downloadable files and virtual products such as memberships. For this, WooCommerce lets you modify a product and give it additional settings.

Digital products aren't a separate type of product (such as simple or variable)—they're a modifier: something you can add on to your simple or variable product. And the new fields will appear in slightly different places depending on the type of product. I'll be showing a simple product with digital fields. If you want to create a variable product with digital fields, the settings will be almost identical but under the Variation settings instead of the General tab.

Digital products

Before we change settings, we need to define terms. WooCommerce uses specific terms with specific meanings. You can make a product virtual and/or downloadable:

Let's see what these options mean:

• Virtual means the product has no physical presence. Therefore, it won't be shipped and the shipping tab will disappear. And if an order contains exclusively virtual products, the customer will skip the shipping section of the checkout.
• Downloadable means the product has downloadable files. There will be additional fields for the downloads. And the customer will automatically be emailed these files after payment is complete.

Downloadable but not virtual

Something I get asked all the time is: Can a product be downloadable but not virtual?

Yes! That's exactly why these are two different settings. A good example would be ordering both a physical CD or DVD, which will be shipped, and an immediate download. In that case, you need to deliver files (downloadable) and you need shipping details (not virtual).

Other good examples would be the following:

• Installation instructions
• FAQs
• Bonus content

Configuring virtual and downloadable products

Configuring a virtual product couldn't be easier. Just check the Virtual setting at the top of the Product data panel.

Downloadable products are a little more work than virtual. Let's start by checking the Downloadable setting at the top of the Product data panel.

Under the General tab of the Product data panel, you'll see a few new fields:

You can add as many files as you want. Give each one a name and link to the file or upload a file.

Are downloadable files safe?

Some store owners worry about uploading files to their site. WooCommerce uses a few different technologies to prevent users from pirating your files (https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/digital-downloadable-product-handling/).

In addition, any files you upload will be hidden from search engines.

For the most part, it isn't worth a ton of effort to prevent piracy. If a user really wants to pirate your content, they'll find a way to do so. But you can always limit downloads and add an expiry time.

One way to protect PDF is with PDF stamping (https://woocommerce.com/products/woocommerce-pdf-watermark/). This embeds personal user information in the PDF (in very small, hard-to-notice print). This way, you have some idea of who shared the original document. This PDF stamping product is a premium plugin, but there are also free solutions on the market.

Large downloadable files

Most web servers have enough space to host files such as desktop wallpapers, PDFs, and images. But if you have a lot of files or if you have large files, then you'll want to find a host for these files. This will speed up your site and could reduce your hosting costs.

Amazon S3 is one of the best tools for sharing static assets such as PDFs, images, and media files. And there's a fairly inexpensive plugin from WooCommerce called Amazon S3 Storage that integrates Amazon S3 with your store (https://woocommerce.com/products/amazon-s3-storage/).

You can also link to Dropbox or any other file storage program you want, although those methods are slightly less secure.

Accessing downloads

Once a user has purchased a downloadable product, they'll see a link to download the file(s) on the Order received page:

And they'll also see the information in an email from WooCommerce as well as under My Account on your site. So, there are multiple places where the user can find their downloads.

PayPal and downloads

If you're using PayPal Standard (included in WooCommerce) for payment, there's a slight delay with the PayPal IPN and customers won't see their downloads until payment is confirmed.

See WooCommerce's advice on how to handle this: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/digital-downloadable-product-handling/#section-12.