Easy Digital Downloads Review: Best Way To Create Digital Download Store in WordPress

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Product Name: Easy Digital Downloads

5

Summary

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a popular user-friendly WordPress plugin for selling digital products online. It streamlines payment processing, automatic delivery, and provides essential features for a seamless selling experience.

The key features of Easy Digital Downloads plugin:

  • Create a digital shopping cart
  • Detailed and in-depth reporting
  • Efficient order & customer management
  • Customer account page
  • File access control
  • Affiliate system integration
Easy Digital Downloads Review
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Have you ever wanted to start your own online store? How about launching your own e-commerce portal on WordPress to sell eBooks or other digital downloads on your WordPress powered blog/site?

Back in the day, it seemed impossible to set up a digital downloads store of your own, but thanks to various online WordPress plugins, now anyone can start a digital downloads store on WordPress and start making money.

Don’t let the term “digital downloads store” misguide you, as it is merely a popular term in the business industry. For a blogger like you and me, what it means is:

  • You can sell eBooks, plugins, or themes on your blog. (You need to have a product of your own or collaborate with others to sell their products.)
  • Musicians can sell their music.
  • Graphic designers can sell graphics or .psd files.
  • Any digital product (image, sound, video, template, or any other digital file) can be downloaded for a price.
  • You can offer consultancy and collect payment.

Last year, we launched an online store here at ShoutMeLoud to sell eBooks online. Earlier, I was selling eBooks on Instamojo and Gumroad. However, I needed a more reliable solution to sell my eBooks internationally, as many Shouters complained about not being able to buy them outside India.

After a lot of thinking and research, I figured out it’s about time to sell eBooks on ShoutMeLoud directly. This is when I bumped into a popular WordPress plugin called Easy Digital Downloads (which is free to use).

Easy Digital Downloads
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Another question before launching the store was:

Should I launch the ShoutMeLoud store on a sub domain or on the main domain?

At first, I thought of launching a store on a sub domain, but later on I dropped that idea and launched it on the main domain (ShoutMeLoud.com)… 🙂

In this tutorial, I will share everything which I have learned about this awesome plugin called “Easy Digital Downloads”.

What is EDD (Easy Digital Downloads) & How Does it Work?

It is basically the WooCommerce equivalent for digital goods.

With Easy Digital Downloads, also known as EDD, you can easily set up an online store (e-commerce store for digital downloads) within a couple of hours. EDD is easy to configure, and as an end user, you will have no problem managing things like:

  • Adding or removing new products.
  • Setting up pricing.
  • Settings up payment gateways.

It makes it easy to manage everything from the WordPress dashboard and even adds in a “Downloads” post type for you to easily make new entries.

Easy Digital Downloads Features
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What I like the most about EDD is how it integrates with all popular WordPress plugins like AffiliateWP, GravityForms, and many others popular products.

Moreover, this is a free plugin which you can try right now.

EDD offers paid add-ons, and this is where they make money. These paid add-ons enhance the features of your store, and I must say, some of the EDD add-ons are important to have.

Initially, I got overwhelmed with the huge number of add-ons, and I was about to buy their add-ons bundle. I luckily changed my decision and purchased only those add-ons which I required.

I suggest you pick the bundle only if you require all of those add-ons, otherwise you are better off by buying add-ons individually.

Here are the Easy Digital Downloads add-ons I purchased for the SML store:

Note: Indian users whose primary audience is in India should use another gateway other than PayPal due to PayPal restrictions. (An Indian PayPal user can’t send or receive payment from other Indian Paypal users.) I suggest you look at other payment gateway such as 2checkout and Instamojo.

The Most Important Thing: Selecting the right payment gateway

The biggest challenge is to pick the right payment gateway. Depending on your country of residence and your target audience’s geo-location, you should pick the one that supports most of the payment collection points.

Easy Digital Downloads Settings
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For your reference, here are the most popular payment gateways:

  • Stripe (For a majority of countries)
  • 2checkout (Also supports a lot of countries)
  • Instamojo (For Indians only)
  • PayPal (Most Popular)
  • Cryptocurrency payment gateway

EDD has built-in support for PayPal basic, and it’s a good starting point if you don’t want to spend money on paid add-ons.

Here is another trick if you want to save money initially…

You should browse the free EDD plugins on the WordPress plugin repo. Many developers have released free plugins for EDD which are otherwise paid on the EDD add-on store.

Here is how my EDD e-commerce store looks (see screenshot below or browse the store for a better understanding):

EDD e-commerce store
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Since this plugin is free, you must try it and watch it open up new possibilities for you. If you don’t want to test it on your live site, you can create a staging site or test it on a local WordPress installation.

Easy Digital Downloads Review – Is It Worth It?

For all those who want to extend their blogging business to the next level, EDD is a great choice.

You can create your first eBook or eCourse or anything which is digitally downloadable and start making money. I have been using the EDD plugin for more than a year now, and it’s a high-quality plugin to launch your digital store on WordPress.

The team behind EDD is one of the best as you get great support in case of any queries, and they always keep rolling out timely updates.

From an entry point, the pricing of add-ons might look a little steep, but considering the possibilities this opens for your e-commerce portal, the price is worth it. Moreover, my suggestion is to add addons slowly as you discover your needs.

Learn more about the EDD plugin

Do let me know if you have further questions regarding the EDD plugin. When and what are you planning to launch on your WordPress based digital downloads store?

If you liked this review of Easy Digital Downloads, do share it with others who can benefit!

Here are some hand-picked guides for you to read next:

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

21 thoughts on “Easy Digital Downloads Review: Best Way To Create Digital Download Store in WordPress”

  1. Gaurav Bidasaria

    Hey Harsh,

    Question: EDD is great for ebooks and downloadable products, but I am looking to provide a service with a subscription model. Like say content development or wordpress support whereby I charge monthly.

    What kind of setup should I use? Will EDD work? There are several factors like payment from Indian/foreign clients, invoicing, accounts, payment gateways etc.

    I like EDD because it integrates with both paypal and instamojo for domestic and international payments. Would like something similar.

    Thank you for your time and effort.

  2. Adarsh

    Thanks for sharing this, Harsh. I am creating digital products and you answered my all queries in this article… thank you again for this article……

  3. haroon ahmad

    OMG Finally Found This! Thanks a lot Harsh Aggarwal For This! Love Your Content As Always!

  4. Shukrant Tanwar

    OMG Finally Found This! Thanks a lot Harsh Aggarwal For This! Love Your Content As Always!

  5. Mohsin Hasan

    Really Nice Article ! Now I Can Also Create My Own Digital Store ! Thanks Shoutmeloud For This.

  6. Ching Chung

    Hi Harsh,

    What are the benefits of EDD over Wocommerce? please Explain,Such a Nice Post

  7. Puspanjalee Das

    Thanks for sharing this, Harsh. I am creating digital products and you solve all my problems in just one article!

  8. Tapan

    hi, My Blog on Blogger so How to install the EDD to my blog?

  9. Liton Biswas

    Helpful post for them who want to sell EBOOK through their blog. Thanks for sharing.

  10. Samba Siva

    Harsh,

    Actually, Some of my visitors are getting converted into regular readers and Subscribers. I think, It is the time to add a digital download store in my blog and try a new monetization method.

    Regards,
    Samba Siva,
    Blogger WP Hacks

  11. Vinit Patil

    Hello Everyone,
    I have a few doubts for these plugins.

    Do you think think that the plugin will be as safe as using other digital downloads software or writing the code yourself ??

    Secondly will the plugin automatically block direct file access to that paid zip file ??

    Thank You.
    Vinit Patil

  12. Dhaval pansuriya

    Really Nice Article ! Now I Can Also Create My Own Digital Store ! Thanks Shoutmeloud For This.

  13. Ashutosh

    Thanks for sharing Harsh !!

    One question, where the payment goes at first, EDD a/c or our ac directly?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Ashutosh
      To your account directly.

  14. Shukrant Tanwar

    Really Nice Article ! Now I Can Also Create My Own Digital Store ! Thanks Shoutmeloud For This.

  15. Noufal Binu

    hi harsh, I’m already used for my online template store this is better than woo plugins. I recommend for who have only digital product then it’s a better one, it is free and we can add very effective premium native plugins like payment gateway and other things in EDD.
    🙂 Thanks harsh.

  16. AJAY

    Dear Harsh,

    Very Useful Article About EDD. Please clear my doubt! Any GST Registration Required For Start online digital Shop With Same As Above Mentioned Items By You?

    1. Bharath Varun

      hi Harsh
      Nice article about EDD ,good presentation to each steps it will be great help full for new one

      Ajay it’s not required any registration for newly startups , i also started recently its in implemented stage.

  17. Anirudh Vij

    Hello Harsh
    It’s being very nice to read your blog.I am your Permanent blog visitor who visits at least 2,3 times on your blog on daily basis.I have really gained very useful knowledge just because from your blog and youtube videos.

    This is blog is also helpful but I have a query, can we use this plugin for building an e-commerce website?

  18. Kris

    Hi Harsh,

    What are the benefits of EDD over Wocommerce? please Explain

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