Smart Website Solutions · Utah

Selling digital products from your WordPress site with Easy Digital Downloads

· Seth Shoultes

A paper-cut open box with a download arrow, sheets of paper and a music note rising from it.

You have something people want to download: an ebook, a set of photos, a course workbook, music, a piece of software. You want to sell it from your own website rather than a marketplace that takes a cut and owns the customer. If your site runs on WordPress, Easy Digital Downloads (often shortened to EDD) is built for exactly that.

What it is

Easy Digital Downloads is a WordPress plugin for selling digital products. You add a product, upload the file, set a price, and connect a way to take payments. When someone buys, they get a link to download what they paid for.

Because it only does digital products, it skips everything a physical store needs, like shipping, stock levels and package sizes. That keeps it simpler to set up and run.

What you can do with it

  • Sell all kinds of files: ebooks, digital art, music, software and more.
  • Take payments through the payment services it connects to.
  • See your sales on a dashboard with earnings, customers and reports, so you can tell what is selling.
  • Run promotions with discount codes and bundles of products.
  • Add what you need later. Extensions add things like more payment options, subscriptions, software licensing and affiliate programs, and it connects to email marketing and analytics tools.

Keeping it secure

Any store that takes payments has to stay up to date. EDD is actively maintained, with regular updates that add features and fix security problems. Install those updates promptly, along with WordPress itself and your other plugins.

Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the best-known WordPress store plugin. It can sell digital products too, but it is built for physical goods first.

  • If you sell only downloads, EDD is usually simpler and lighter.
  • If you sell physical products, or a mix of both, WooCommerce is the better fit.

Is it right for you?

If your products are files and you want to sell them from your own site, keep your customers’ details and avoid marketplace fees, Easy Digital Downloads is a sensible place to start. It suits someone selling their first ebook as well as an established business with a catalog.

If you would like help setting up a store, or working out whether EDD or WooCommerce fits what you sell, call me at 801-688-8590 or email seth@smartwebutah.com.