GUMROAD Review: Sell your first digital product

Finding the right e-commerce platform to sell your digital products like an e-book, spreadsheet or any other kind of digital product is a difficult task.

As a start-up entrepreneur or blogger, you look for a free platform, avoiding any initial cost.
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I designed the solar feasibility spreadsheet and wanted to sell to the international clients but all the platforms I searched were asking the initial fee to use their platform.

Somehow, I ended up finding a very good platform which is GUMROAD.
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It offers its users to upload and sell the digital products free of cost.
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Although, it charges its fee when you made a sale and I think it is fine and acceptable for most of us and we don’t mind sharing a minute percentage of profit with GUMROAD.

What is GUMROAD?

www.gumroad.com

Gumroad is the super simple e-commerce platform to sell your digital products like books, courses, music and more to your audience.

You can even sell physical goods through this platform.

It charges its fees from the sale and in return deliver the digital files to the customers.

Gumroad is a place to:

• create and sell your product
• Interact with your customers
• Build your audience
• Get an insight into the sales

And the process is very fast and smooth.

How does it work?

• The process is very simple, just go www.gumroad.com , signup and create your account.
• Type the pay-out information
• Create your first digital product and upload it
• Review it and publish it
• Share the link among your friends via social media like Facebook, Twitter
• Your audience will check the link, enter the payment information and pay the requisite amount.
• The digital files will be delivered to their e-mail box in no time. S/he can download the file and can use it at her/his disposal.
• Gumroad will verify the account and the sales and then send the payout every Friday in your bank account after deducting its fees.

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Simple!

What can you sell?

You can sell anything on Gumroad like e-book, spreadsheet, tutorials, videos and like.

​You can sell a one-time product, subscriptions, pre-orders.
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However, before launching and uploading any product on Gumroad,

I recommend you go through the terms and services and prohibited item.

How to setup your account?

Before getting started with Gumroad, you need to create your account with it by going to its login screen or I'm inviting you to join Gumroad.

GUMROAD signup page

You have option to create your account through Facebook or Twitter or you can signup with your e-mail address. 

You will receive the confirmation e-mail from Gumroad about creating your account.

Remember to confirm the account by clicking on the link sent. If you don’t see in your inbox then check your spam box.
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After confirming your account is ready and now you can start uploading your products.

Free and Paid services

You have a choice either to select the free account or go for the premium account.

I will explain the difference between the two:
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• The free account obviously has fewer features and Gumroad will charge 8.5% + $0.3 per sale of your product.

• Whereas in case of the premium account, you will be paying $10 per month, it is loaded with all features and Gumroad will charge 3.5% +$0.3 per sale of the product

Its free to get started with GUMROAD and its paid plan is affordable

How to make a profile page?

You can easily make your profile page. Just check out my profile page, here is the link https://gumroad.com/yashkumar

My Profile Page on GUMROAD

Settings

Once you have signup, your account in activated. Now, under settings tab you can provide information which is important for start selling your digital product.

​Click on your account name at the top right> a drop box will open> click the settings

settings tab of GUMROAD

Under the settings menu, you have the options like:

• Make payout settings
• Language settings
• Currency setting in which you want to sell your product
• Password settings
• You can add your custom domain name (paid feature)
• And many more

Creating first digital product

Now, you are ready to upload your first digital product and start selling to the international audience.

• Click the product tab> New product> Classic: start selling today

The whole process is shown below:

Step 1: click on the product

You have 3 methods to start selling on GUMROAD

Classic: start selling today and naming the product like I did "Solar Feasibility Spreadsheet"

Option of setting minimum price of your digital product on GUMROAD

Amount: Set the price of the product for your audience. There is a feature of minimum pricing under which you can set the minimum price of your product.

If the customer is willing to pay more than the minimum price, s/he can do it.

For example, I set the minimum price of the product $ 5+, it means that the customer should pay a minimum of $5 to get the product and if s/he feels that I deserve more for this product then s/he can pay more than $5.

Pre-order: sell before a release date

​Products > New Product > Pre-order: sell before a release date

Option of selling your product before a release date on GUMROAD

This feature is very unique in Gumroad, enabling you to start selling your masterpiece which is about to complete, I mean some finishing touch is pending in the product.

You can launch your product through pre-order.

All you need to do is simply put the completion date and the time of your product; not to worry you can change it at any point of time before the date.

Whatever files you have with you, just upload them and let your audience have a look at your work.

​Gumroad will automatically charge the amount from those who have entered the payment information and will deliver the final files at the date which you will mention in your pre-order.

Subscriptions and memberships

Products > New Product > Subscriptions and Memberships

Option of selling subscription and membership

With subscriptions and memberships, you can provide regular updates of your product and can charge after regular interval of time say after every six months or after every year.

You can also run subscriptions of fixed duration which ends after a fixed interval of time say after every 1 year.
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The user has to renew the subscriptions if s/he wants to continue the services.

Offer discount

You can even offer discounts on the products to your audience and offering a discount is a very good marketing strategy to bring and attract new customers.

You can do it in Gumroad through the following process:

Marketing Strategy: You can even give discount on your digital products

Test your product

You can test and check the purchase flow, like how your product will be delivered to your customer.

• ​Click on your product > I want this

You can even test your product before making it live

​You will see the same process which customer will experience while entering the payment information and buying your product.

After pressing "I want this!", the following checkout information will be displayed on the screen:

The checkout process on GUMROAD

When you click on the Pay button after entering your e-mail , the copy of the digital product is sent to your mailbox and you also get the receipt of the product.
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You will not be charged for this as this a test pay.

GUMROAD Test Purchase

The receipt will be generated and is mailed to your e-mail address.

Send automated e-mails

Let's assume, you have designed an online course and are adding new chapters every week.

Using "Workflows" feature in Gumroad, you can send the automated e-mails to your customers at regular interval of time after the purchase of your online course

Use 'Workflows' feature to send automated e-mails to your prospects

Sharing your work

You can share your product to your audience and followers through different social mediums like Facebook and Twitter.

• Click on the uploaded product > Share​

You will see the three options on the top left of the screen, click on share a new screen will open which is shown below:

Share your digital product on different social media platforms

Overlay and embed:

With an overlay, you can bring the Gumroad checkout page directly on your website by simply pasting the small HTML code and with Embed you can put the product directly on the website.

Data and reporting

You can see the analytics of your product in the dashboard like sales, the geography of the sales.

Review the analytics like sales, geography of your product on GUMROAD Dashboard

Sellers and affiliates

If you too want to sell your product to the international audience through gumroad then I invite you to signup with gumroad and upload the product and start selling it in no time.

However, if you don’t have any product right now or is in the process then still you can start selling through gumroad by becoming the affiliate.

For example, I am selling some product and people are liking my product and want to recommend and sell it to their friends and other people in their circle.

They can do it and earn income by becoming my affiliates. If you like to earn a 50% of the price by referring my spreadsheet then again the process is same you need to first signup with gumroad.
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After doing this, I will send you the affiliate link and the opportunity to earn 50% commission.

Add an affiliate for your product with GUMROAD and grow your sales

You have the option to refund the amount.

Gumroad pays to its sellers very Friday by direct deposit into the bank account (the USA, Canada, the U.K. and Australia) or through paypal provided you have $ 10 USD as a balance in your Gumroad account.
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It generally takes 1-5 days to get the money in your bank account.
You can set the pay-out  in the settings tab.

What are you waiting for?
Get selling and show your presence to the world.