Boom in mobile technology caused digital contents as a new way to make plenty of money.Internet can make you a billionaire with less investment and human resources.Thats why we are frequently hearing about million dollar acquisition.
Selling Digital contents like Ebooks,Apps,Themes,Plugins etc are much easier to sell in Internet than physical products which needs to be shipped and plenty of other factors comes in like warranty etc.
Though there are some specialised CMS for building E-Commerce stores like Magneto but WordPress is still preferred because of its flexibility and cost overhead.You can mould it like anything Personal blog, Company website, Community forum, Social Media Website and an E-Commerce Store.
In the wake of 10th Anniversary of WordPress here I am with some useful stuff which will help you to understand the power of WordPress.
I am going to show how to build a WordPress ecommerce store for Digital downloads with the help of Easy Digital Downloads.
Requirements
- WebHost with WordPress installed
- Paypal Business ID ( To receive payments )
I assume you have already installed WordPress,If not follow this Guide by WPBeginner.
Next step is to install Easy Digital Downloads WordPress Plugin.From your dashboard go to Plugins >> Add new and in search field search for “Easy Digital Downloads” and install the plugin which is first in the result.
You need to use custom themes made for Easy Digital Downloads plugin to give best user experience to your buyers.Being a cheapster I mostly prefer free themes,So I chose Shop Front theme framework which is minimalistic free WordPress theme designed to work with Easy Digital Downloads plugin.
You can download Shop Front from here by free registration.Once you downloaded,Install it by visiting Appearance >> Themes >> Install Themes >> Upload
Once you installed it you can see two themes : Shop Front and Shop Front Child Theme.Activate the Shop Front Child Theme,because its easy to style without changing the base theme.We will get back to this later.
First you need to setup payment system,From your dashboard visit to All Downloads >> Settings >> Payment Gateways.Fill the settings with appropriate details and Test Payment is used to test the system without making payment.
Here is how my settings look like
Payment Settings
You can leave other settings as such but if you don’t want user to purchase multiple product then you need to change some settings.This is very useful for single product sites.
Go to All Downloads >> Settings >> Misc and check the second option “Redirect to Checkout“. This will directly take the buyer to payment page then adding the product to cart.
Redirect to Payment
Thats almost completed, Last step is to create products.To create a new product go to All Downloads >> Add New and make a new entry for your product.You can set the price and attach the Digital file of your product through Download Configuration tab.
Download Configurations
Thats it,You have successfully built an Online store for Digital downloads.Before launching the site go though the other options provided by Easy Digital Downloads plugin and Test the payment system.
If you are not satisfied with default then you can customize it via Child theme style.css.Contact me here if you need any further assistance setting up a E-Commerce store using WordPress.
You can visit my online store where I sell Genesis Child themes.This tutorial is completely based on my work with this E-Commerce store.
