Easy Digital Downloads Review

If you want to created a digital course or content and want to sell it online to provide value to your consumers but can’t figure out how to do so and have no prior knowledge about coding, that’s where EDD or Easy Digital Download Plugins come into play. Easy Digital Download is the best plugin if you want to sell digital products on your WordPress Website.

In this post, we will do a complete Easy Digital Downloads Review.

Why Use Easy Digital Downloads?

• Designed for digital products: Easy Digital Download Plugin is specifically designed for selling digital products and provides relevant tools like payment gateways and fast downloads.
• Easy to use: Easy Digital Downloads is very easy to use and does not require any coding knowledge even the owner can set it up himself if he has some basics about the internet and computers. It is user-friendly and intuitive. You can quickly set up your digital store and start selling digital products.
• Flexibility: Easy Digital Download offers vast customization features to make the wordpress plugin look and match the style and feel of your website
• Payment Gateways: Easy Digital Download support multiple payment gateways and the owner doesn’t have to install additional payment gateway plugins
• Analytics and Reporting: Easy Digital Download provides detailed analytics and reporting features that give provides updates about your sales and customer behavior. The owner can easily track sales, revenue, and customer behavior.

Installing Easy Digital Download

To get started with Easy Digital Downloads (EDD), you need to follow these steps:

• First, you have to Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
• Then Click on “Plugins” in the left-hand menu and select “Add New.”
• Search “Easy Digital Downloads.”
• Click “Install Now.” on Easy Digital Downloads plugin page.
• After the installation is complete, click “Activate Plugin.”

That’s it you have successfully installed Easy Download Plugin on your WordPress e-commerce Website 

Creating Downloads with Easy Digital Download

Now that you know how to download and add EDD on your website let’s see how can you Create your first download with Easy Digital Downloads, to create your download file follow these steps:

• First login to your WordPress dashboard.
• After you installed EDD you will see a new “Downloads” button. Click on “Downloads” and select “Add New.”
• Enter the desired name for your download and a description of the product.

Now you have created your download successfully you can add products to it.

Adding Products to Easy Digital Downloads

After Creating Downloads in EED you can add the digital product very easily by following these steps:

• Under “Download Configuration,” upload your digital product file. You can also add multiple files if you want to offer different versions of the product.
• Set the price of the product.
• Choose a download type. EDD supports various download types, including single purchases, variable prices, and subscriptions.
• Select a category for your download.
• Add any additional details, such as product images.
• Click “Publish” to make your download available.

Easy Digital Downloads Features

Easy Digital Downloads is a powerful and feature-rich plugin. Here we have listed some of the features offered by EDD

• Payment gateway integration: Easy Digital Download integrates with various payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon Payments.
• Customizable checkout: Easy Digital Download allows you to customize the look of the plugin to match the brand.
• Discount codes and promotions: Easy Digital Download supports discount codes integration which helps the owner to provide discount codes to the consumers
• Detailed reporting and analytics: Easy Digital Download provides detailed reports and analytics about consumer buying patterns and which product is selling the most
• Extensibility: Easy Digital Download is highly compatible with many other plugins to add features that might be missing

Payment Gateways

Customers can use all the credit and debit cards in Easy Digital Downloads and it supports many major payment gateways like Paypal, Stripe and Amazon Payments. Many other payment gateways can also be added with the help of extensions using Easy Digital Download Extension, some of these extensions are free.

For payment gateway settings, go to the Downloads » Settings and click on the payment tab to customize its settings.

Test Mode

The Easy Digital Download feature called Test mode is used to check the functionality of checkout page and processing of payment. This is useful for ensuring that your payment gateway integration is working correctly before you start selling products.

After Enabling Test mode all transactions will be considered tests and would not cost any money.

To enable test mode in EDD, follow these steps:

• Login to your WordPress dashboard.
• Click on the “Downloads” tab in the left-hand menu and select “Settings”.
• Click on the “Payment Gateways” tab.
• Select the payment gateway that you want to enable test mode for.
• Scroll down to the “Gateway Options” section and look for the “Test Mode” option.
• Enable the “Test Mode” option and save your changes.

Checkout Options

Some users don’t want to create a account on any portal, it they have to buy something once. So, at that time Guest Checkout option is the best option. Easy Digital Downloads checkout can be customized and you can redirect your users to the checkout page once they bookmark the products to their cart.

You can enable the registered or guest checkout according to your choice.

Custom Checkout Form

Custom Checkout Form allows the owner to request more data other than email addresses such as name, date, shipping address, and mobile number.

These Custom Checkout forms can be customized and managed using the Checkout Field Manager

Recurring Payments

Easy Digital Download Plugin support recurring payments which allows the owner to offer subscription-based services to the consumer in which a certain amount is automatically debited from the customer account and credited to the owner’s account on a monthly or yearly basis.

The owner can set up Recurring Payments by installing and activating the Recurring Payment Extension.

The owner Can also set up a weekly or quarterly billing system. 

Custom Pricing

Custom pricing or “Name Your Price” is a very essential feature for new publishers as it helps them price their products fairly and improves sales.

Custom pricing allows consumers to name a price that they think is fair for the product and the owner can either accept or decline the offer 

Custom Pricing is also great for NGOs for their donation collection

Custom pricing can be enabled by installing the Custom Pricing Extension and enabling it for specific products

The owner can also set up different price tiers at which the consumer gets special goodies.

Bundles

Product bundles are an effective way of improving the sales of products. A Product Bundle is a collection of different products which can appear more appealing to consumers rather than buying each individual product (for eg a music producer can sell mixtapes which are a collection of multiple songs produced by him).

You can create Product Bundles by Following these steps 

• First Go to Downloads > Bundles
• Click on the Add New button to create a new bundle.
• Enter a name and description for the bundle.
• Add the products to the bundle by clicking the Add Products button.
• Decide the pricing for the bundle.
• Save your changes.

Discount Codes

Discounts play a huge role in improving the sales of products massively. You can create discount coupons for your product using the Discount Code extension Available in Easy Digital Downloads and share them around in forums, social media, and groups to improve your sales.

Here’s how you can create a discount code in Easy Digital Downloads:

• First, click on Downloads and then click on Discount Codes and select the Add New button.
• Name the Discount Code and select the code type i.e amount or percentage type
• Set the discount amount or percentage.
• Choose the products to which the discount code will apply.
• Set any limitations for the discount code, such as a minimum purchase amount or a time limit.
• Save your changes.

Customer Management

Easy Digitals Downloads Come built-in with a Custom Management tool that helps you to manage and track customers’ accounts, and orders and maintain a proper record and manage their order history and communicate with them

You can access this data in the Customer section on the plugin’s Download page.

Reporting

Easy Digital Download has a strong reporting system that provides reports regarding your sales, revenue, and consumer data

These are some features of the Easy Digital Download Reporting System

• Sales Overview
• Sales by Product
• Sales by Category
• Customer Reports
• Payment Gateway Reports

Easy Digital Downloads Extensions

Easy Digital Download is a powerful tool but its functionality can be improved with the addition of an extension that can be downloaded separately 

Here is a list of some good extensions 

• Software Licensing: Setup license for your products which prevent stealing of your products
• Recurring Payments: Helps in setting up a subscription-based payment method
• Reviews: Allows consumers to leave product reviews
• Mailchimp: The Mailchimp extension to setup email listing for consumers which keep them updated with your new offerings

Product Page Frontend Appearance

Product page Appearance can be easily customized to match your business site.

You can use Easy Digital Downloads to create a very professional-looking e-commerce site. Other than templates you can use custom CSS and extensions to further tune the looks of your website.

Purchase Confirmations

Easy Digital Downloads generates an email whenever a consumer makes a purchase and is sent through email to both the owner and the consumers. 

This confirmation contains important information like the Order number, Date, payment method, and consumer information

This Purchase Confirmation email can be customized with thank you messages and other tiny details.

On WordPress admin, you have to look under Downloads » Settings » Emails » Purchase Receipts.

Customer Management

Easy Digital Downloads Come bundled with robust Customer management tools that help you to track and manage customer activities 

Following are some features of the Customer management tool offered by Easy Digital Download:

• Customer Dashboard
• Customer Profiles
• Purchase History
• Customer Email Notifications
• Customer Reports
• Customer Communication

Full-Powered Ecommerce That’s Still Easy

Easy Digital Downloads is a very powerful and lightweight plugin that you can use to grow your digital business. If you don’t want to invest in the plugin, you can use its free version and once your website starts to generate good revenue you can purchase the EDD extensions to further unlock the potential of this robust plugin. You can add features such as:

• MailChimp
• Subscriptions
• Software licensing

Does Easy Digital Downloads Work With Your WordPress Theme?

Being a WordPress plugin it does support your WordPress themes and you can tweak the settings to make any element that is out of place match your liking 

Additionally. You can install extensions like customize the EDD furthermore to better match your business.

Easy Digital Downloads vs WooCommerce

Easy Digital Downloads is a plugin that is built especially for digital products and services while Woo Commerce is better recommended for Physical Products and has some special features that are essential for Physical Products like a Delivery Cost calculator and integration with courier services which is not needed by Digital Publishers

These Additional features can confuse you while setting up the plugin so we recommend using individual plugins based on your business type.

Easy Digital Downloads Price

The Base version of Digital Downloads is free to use and has all the essential features that you need to start your business

However, the Developers also offer a premium license starting at 99$ which gives you additional features and payment options that we highly recommend purchasing once you start to generate stable income from your business

Additional Extensions can also be purchased which further improve the functionality of the Plugin, these you can buy according to your requirements.

• Personal: $99.50/year
• Extended: $199.50/year
• Professional: $299.50/year
• All Access Pass: $499.50/year

Conclusion: Easy Digital Downloads Plugin

Easy Digital Downloads is a robust and feature-rich word press plugin for your digital e-commerce website. It offers a range of extensions that allow one to manage and customize the shopping experience and streamlines the process of purchasing products for consumers.

EDD helps you to set up payment gateways and offers reporting features that help you to keep track of your consumer purchase history and sales. With the help of a template provided by plugins, you can set it up yourself without any professional help.

In Conclusion, We recommend the Easy Digital Download Plugin for your e-commerce WordPress Website.

FAQs About Easy Digital Download Plugin

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