The advantages of digital products
When you think about starting your online business, what comes to mind? An offline retail store concept translated into the realm of the Internet? A downloadable digital product like software, eBooks, and manuals? There are no right or wrong answers here, but digital products certainly offer some advantages over physical products.
Most Internet users are very familiar with physical products. Before the internet came along, most products sold were tangible, physical items such as televisions, furniture, clothing, and toys. You will be able to offer details that demand the 5 senses, such as sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. Many offline stores have moved to the Internet world, such as Barnes and Nobles, banks, pharmaceutical stores, and clothing stores. Online stores have lower overhead costs.
So why am I recommending digital products over physical products? The shipment. One limitation of worldwide physical product sales on E-bay is the shipping costs for large and bulky items. You can easily pay $20 to have a refrigerator delivered to your home, but if you buy it in another country, it will cost you at least a few hundred dollars. You need a place to store these physical products while you sell them, and warehouse storage costs money. You can use direct supply to your customers, but your profit margin is drastically reduced. If your products need special storage like refrigeration, the costs will increase.
This is where downloadable digital products have an advantage. You can easily store the digital product on your hard drive and nowadays the prices of digital storage devices have come down and depreciated rapidly over time as technology advances. Delivery is instant, just let your customers download it from the internet.
However, there are some disadvantages to digital products, but they are relatively minor compared to its advantages. I’ve heard that people’s sanity is affected when their precious digital goods are lost when their hard drives fail, or when servers are hit by viruses that erase all data. Although the equipment to store them and host websites on a large scale can be expensive, today there are many options when it comes to shared hosting that are lower in cost.
Money can be made on both physical and digital products. To trade smoothly, use digital products, but regardless of the products you choose, competitors abound, so you need to exercise the right marketing strategies to win.