If you want to sell only one kind of product on your eCommerce website which is a digital product, then Easy Digital Downloads is so far the best plugin to do so. This plugin lets you sell digital products with ease. You can sell products such as Ebooks, Digital Music, Graphics, Photographs or Images, and also various services. This plugin has many features and is easily extendable with the help of its various extensions. Today we are going to see how much this plugin is fit for selling Digital Products with WordPress. Let’s Check out how you can get started selling your digital products in this Easy Digital Downloads Review.
Basic Structure
The core plugin is free so you can easily download this plugin from WordPress repo and try it by yourself. The basic functionality is provided by the core plugin but if you wish to add more features to your site then you must buy its various extensions. They also provide a marketplace bundle at a discount price which is more economical to help you create a marketplace of your own. There are over 250 add-ons in the marketplace at the moment and they are growing to provide you an enhanced functionality.
When it comes to choosing a theme, EDD works well with almost every theme so you can purchase any theme from ThemeForest for your website.
If you wish to use any of EDD supported the theme, then you can check the EDD theme listing for one.
Since the core plugin is free, you will just have to spend on the extensions as well as a theme.
Also Read: EDD Sell Services
Installation/ Usefulness
Installing EDD is not a complex setup. The documentation is broad and available for the plugin as well as each of its addon. As soon as you will install the plugin, you will be required to assign pages to different sections and set the storage location. Other important setting includes adding payment gateways, setting up emails, button styling as well as setting up taxes as per your country.
The key features of EDD are:
- Discount codes
- A complete shopping cart,
- Unlimited File Downloads,
- Download Activity Tracking,
- Rest API.
- Full Data Reporting
Adding a Product
Adding a product that is simple as well as a variable is a simple process. You can add products just like you create a page. The product added will be displayed on a new page. In order to add a product, Go to Add New in the Downloads section of your dashboard. Here you will first add the product title and the description of the product. Then you can add the Download Price as well as upload the file you wish to sell. You can select the Product Type option between Default and Bundle. You can also add Download Notes if you wish to add.
You can limit the number of times a customer can download a file. You can also add categories and set tags for your products. EDD also allows you to get a detailed record of your sales and earnings with its Download Stats Option.
Shipping and Payment Options
The major default payment gateways that EDD provides are PayPal Standard and Amazon Payments. It also provides a test mode option which allows you to build your store and process transactions without having to use real money. This means you don’t need to know what gateway you’ll use before you start building your store.
You can also integrate EDD with other payment gateways by purchasing their extensions such as Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal Edition, Coinbase, and more. They also provide third-party payment gateway integration other than those listed on their website.
Reports Management
Reports is a completely separate option that provides you with a detailed overview of your store including sales, earnings, etc, You can view your earnings by category, downloads, payment methods as well as taxes. You can view earnings over time as well. Another major feature of the report section is it allows you to export your report your reports such as sales, customers, downloads, logs, etc, in the form of CSV. You can as well view the download logs from your customers. Easy Digital Downloads Review
Customer Management
Again managing customers with EDD is a simple process. This plugin provides a complete system for managing your customers. You can easily see as well as edit the personal information of each customer, the products they have downloaded, the number of times they have downloaded a product, and the amount they have spent on their purchase. You can also add any note for purchases if you wish to do so.
Support
Looking at the number of downloads of free plugins, it becomes quite inevitable that this plugin is quite popular among the masses. The reviews it has received are also really impressive. Talking about their support system, it is prompt also the documentation and videos they provide are top-notch. If you need fast support, you can always contact their priority support. You can either get their 45-day access worth $99 or Yearly access worth $299. Easy Digital Downloads Review
Final Review
So this plugin is definitely worth a try if you wish to sell and create an eCommerce store for your digital products. It’s easy to set up as well as provides you with a wide range of features for your store. Also if you want an enhanced functionality such as letting your customers add reviews, frontend submissions, etc, then you can surely go for their extensions and bundles. The support is without a doubt amazing and the reviews have always been positive. It also provides a number of shortcodes to help you get more work done easily. Not only this you can also offer discounts to your customers through various means. Therefore, I would definitely recommend this plugin for your digital store.
Interesting Reads:
EDD Sell Services: Selling services with Easy Digital Downloads
