7 Most Profitable Digital Products of 2021 That You Could Start Selling Right Away

by Debbie Oct 26, 2021
381
0

Are you planning to become a digital entrepreneur in 2021 but not sure where to start from? Do you keep asking yourself what digital products sell best, but fail to get the right answer? Is your browser history full of search items like “most profitable digital products to sell online”, “how to sell digital content”, or “most profitable online products to sell”? 

Rest assured that you're not alone in this frantic search for the best-selling digital products of 2021.  

With this growing pandemic scare, retail stores and on-site services taking severe blows, and people turning to online mediums to fulfill their long- and short-term needs, it's only natural to search for diverse sources of income. 

Have Awesome Digital Products to Sell?
Start Selling Them Now for Free 

And, in this age of the Internet, nothing makes for a better ally than a best-selling digital product. 

But before you start putting your business plan on paper, you might want to ask some serious questions to fine-tune your business research. These questions could be:    

  • What exactly is a digital product? 

  • What are the benefits that come from selling top digital products? 

  • what product is selling the most online? 

  • What digital products can I sell with the least investment and for maximum returns? and 

  • How to promote digital products online? 

Read on to get the answers to the above questions, along with other facts and figures, so you could have your most profitable digital products of 2021 list on the top of your desk. 

What are Digital Products?

Before you google ”how to create and sell digital products“, you should get the basics right regarding what actually constitutes a digital product. 

Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, describes digital products as digital goods or e-goods that are intangible and exist in digital form.  

In other words, a product created, stored, and sold using a computer (PC, mobile, laptop, tablets, etc.) is classified as a digital product. 

You can say that there isn’t much difference between a top-selling digital product and top-selling digital content. That’s because, unlike the physical ones, the utility one derives from digital products is totally intangible.

Why Should You Start Selling Digital Products? 

For two reasons:    

  • The humongous growth potential that the digital product market shows, and 

  • The ease with which you can start and grow this business    

Let’s have a look at the growth part first. According to Nex.business, an innovation consultancy specializing in business development, “The digital goods commerce is growing twice as fast as physical goods commerce....”, and “It’s already a gigantic USD 950 billion markets....”.    

Nigel Fenwick, VP, Principal Analyst, concluded his article titled “2020: The Year of Digital Products” with the advice that “To get ahead of your competitors, invest in digital product development capabilities early in 2020”. 

For those of you who might be running short on time and want to give the above article a pass: He was all praises for digital products and their growth throughout the piece.

Benefits of Selling Digital Products   

Let’s have a look at some of the many benefits that you'd reap once you jump on the digital product bandwagon:   

  • You could work from the comforts of your home.
  • You won’t have to worry about the payments, as you could choose to make your model “pay first, delivery next”, like most digital sellers.
  • You could enlist on as many third-party websites as you want or you can build your own website/portfolio to give your digital products maximum exposure.
  • If your product proves to be of value to your customers, then the word of mouth alone might be enough to skyrocket your growth.
  • You won’t be limited by your geography.
  • Your business overhead won’t be anything like that of a brick-and-mortar store.
  • You won’t have to spend too much on physical advertising and marketing. 

Why This List of Top Selling Digital Products Is Important? 

There are hundreds of blogs out there with their choice of bestselling digital products in 2021. So, what makes this list of bestselling digital products better, or any different, than all the other ones? 

Well, the devil is in the details, and in this case, it’s in the heading. If you scroll up a little, you’ll find that this blog’s heading reads “7 Most Profitable Digital Products of 2021 THAT YOU COULD START SELLING RIGHT AWAY”. 

We're listing digital products that are not only bestselling, but also the ones that you could start selling right away, or at least within minimum time and effort.    

What does that mean? That would mean that WordPress themes, desktop software, mobile apps, 3D models, etc., are out of the question. 

Why? Because before you start selling 3dmodels online or become the uncrowned king of WordPress theme development, you need to put in some serious time to learn the craft. And that, friends, will not justify the title of our blog.  

And Now, Your List of 7 Most Profitable Digital Products of 2021  

1. eBooks 

ebooks selling as a digital product

What would you need to start? 

  • An eBook text editor 

  • A basic image editing application  

  • A computer with mid-range specifications (specs)   

Here is a quick stat check. The global eBook market was valued at USD 18.13 billion in 2020. And it only gets better. The market is expected to reach USD 23.12 billion by 2026, which is a CAGR of 4.9%, during the forecast period (2021-2026) (source: E- BOOK MARKET – GROWTH).    

Won’t you like to get some of these big dollars in your bank a/c? EBooks, one of the most chosen type of digital products to sell online, are so important nowadays, that a good bunch of content marketers considers them as the bedrock of online marketing strategies. They're used by companies and individuals for varied reasons. Some used it to deliver updates about their company, some for imparting helpful content to their present and potential customers. 

And, if your content catches the pain points of your customers, chances are they’ll come back for more. 

If you're good at writing helpful material, then you could choose to contact companies and offer them your services. All you'd then need is an internet connection and writing software to get the good work done in time. 

With your skills honed with writing for companies, you could give a shot to writing your own novels, coaching material, guides, etc., and get them published online. 

With publishers like Amazon and a few others in place, you don’t even have to care for traditional publishing options and the whims of literary agents.  

2. Stock Photos 

What would you need to start? 

  • A professional camera  

  • An image editor 

  • Membership of stock photo providers OR your own online portfolio 

  • A computer with mid-range specs    

You have a newspaper to run? You need photos. You write blogs? You need photos. You're launching a new product and have written its marketing content? 

To satiate this huge need is why stock photography was born in 1920. Since then, the market for stock photos has grown leaps and bounds and is set to generate $4 Billion by 2023. (source)— and it makes sense. 

With social media taking over as one of the major communication channels, people like pictures to do the talking. 

So, if photography has always been your first love and you have an eye for capturing everything beautiful around you, you can choose to become a part of stock photo providers such as Shutterstock or Getty Images

You've to first upload your pictures on these platforms and then wait for the clients who would find them suitable for their content. If your images make the cut, you get paid, of which you've to pay a part to these platforms. 

If you're not in favor of sharing your spoils, then you can build your own stock photo portfolio online, and sprinkle your portfolio’s link all around the internet, and reach out to your customers directly.

 

3. Graphic Art 

What would you need to start? 

  • A graphic designing software 

  • Membership of stock vector image providers OR your own online portfolio 

  • A digital drawing pad (If required)  

  • A computer with mid-to high-range specs   

Some might argue that graphic designing should be a part of stock content. And to some extent it is. You’ll find vector images on stock photo websites, but graphic designing is a whole different demon on its own. 

The world of visual communication is shared between both graphics and photographs. According to IBISWorld, the global graphic designers market size was around $45 billion in 2021. Think you'd fit right in? 

Now you might be thinking, but didn’t the headline read “.....that you could start right away”? Well, here is the fun and surprising part. Not all graphic designing is about drawing fine curves on a digital tablet. That would indeed need a certain level of mastery. 

But, with the advent of online graphic design tools like StencilCanvaPicMonkey, etc., all you need now is ideas and a way of expressing them using such software. 

As most of these tools are drag-and-drop editors, where you could just pick the right element and color with a few clicks, a few hours of practice for a few weeks might be all you need to start selling your packets of beautifully designed graphic art. 

Your buyers would range from big product marketing teams to event managers and even t-shirt designers.  

4. Digital Printable  

What would you need to start? 

  • A graphic designing application 

  • Membership of a website that sells printable OR your own online portfolio  

  • A computer with mid-to high-range specifications   

If you thought that graphic designing is a somewhat serious part of the designing business, then printable is where the fun lies. With this digital product, you could go directly B2C, in comparison to graphics where you mostly work with companies who then sell to customers. 


 

 

Digital printable are products that you'd mostly find in stationery shops. Toddler wall art, calendars, greeting cards, journals for school, college, or business goers, posters, etc. They’ve to be one of the best-selling digital products, judging by the sheer number of people buying them on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. 

You don’t even have to be that good in the designing department when it comes to printable. Just the idea of what colors and elements (images, boxes, circles, etc.) would look good together, and a curiosity to tap into the market of various age groups is what one needs to become a digital printable business genius.

 

5. Online Assignment Services 

What would you need to start? 

  • A text editor 

  • Membership of online assignment service providers OR your own website  

  • A computer with low-range specs 

  • Decent writing and typing skills  

Remember, how back in school, or college, there was that one subject that you always liked but never had enough time to explore? Or, maybe, you had that itch for submitting your assignments well before the deadline. 

Sometimes your friends didn’t like you for that because you ended up reminding your teachers about those deadlines by this little “academic stalwart” act of yours. But, guess what, if you answered yes to all those questions, then this digital product idea is just your thing. And your potential clients would love you for this too. 

Your going rate could range from per word to per assignment, and the best part is your client base would be recurring, given your work is good.

 

6. Podcast

What would you need to start? 

  • A good recording device  

  • A soundproof space for recording sessions 

  • A computer with mid-to high-range specs  

  • A sound editing and mixing application 

  • Membership of podcast hosting platform OR your own website with audio/video hosting   

According to PodcastInsights’ 2021 Podcast Stats & Facts, there are, currently, over 2,000,000 podcast shows, 850,000 active podcasts, and more than 30 million podcast episodes. Big numbers without a doubt! 

To build the initial listener base, all you'd need is YouTube. Although people visit this platform for watching videos, for the last few years it has been wildly impactful in the podcast space too. 

Then there are podcast hosting platforms such as Buzzsprout, Captivate, Transistor, Castos, Podbean, etc., that have turned out to be big names in the space. 

You can start with anything that you're good at. A workout program, investment lessons, or movie reviews. 

You could even invite personalities and interview them for your listeners, but that will require your podcast to have a certain authority in advance.

7. Workout Plans

What would you need to start? 

  • A good camera (preferably DSLR)  

  • A decent recording device  

  • A space to conduct your online workout sessions  

  • A computer with mid-to high-range specs  

  • A video and sound editing and mixing application  

  • A website to host your health blogs and videos  

Nothing has picked up more pace than online workouts. People prefer to avoid gyms nowadays. And, a sedentary WFH has put the health of millions at risk to some extent. So it’s time to get your high-school PE lessons back together and put them to some profitable and noble use. 

If you're in a shape that gives you the confidence to stand in front of a camera and the stamina to conduct workout sessions for several people, then you're good to go green with your fitness coaching program. 

Writing an eBook, starting your own stock photography or graphic design venture, podcast, assignment services, or digital printable service are just a few examples of top-selling digital products that you could start selling in 2021. 
So you shouldn't limit yourself to these options alone. Anything that has the potential to be of some use to your buyers could be your next bestselling digital product idea, given you're ready to go that extra business mile with it. 

Tags