In addition to physical products, you can also sell digital files, such as e-books or videos. In BigCommerce, we call these digital products. With digital products, your customers receive their files as soon as their order is complete, and you can specify when and how many times they can download it.

 

How Digital Products Work

Digital products in BigCommerce share most of their attributes with physical products, but there are some notable differences such as the removal of physical dimension and shipping fields. You can create individual digital products in the control panel, or add them in bulk using the legacy Import/Export tool.

When attaching files to a digital product, you can add them directly to the product or upload them to WebDAV and select them in the control panel. If you’re importing your digital files for the first time, they must be in WebDAV first.

The toggles to upload a file from your device or from WebDAV

Attaching a digital file to your product is optional. This is helpful if you use a third-party service to deliver your digital files to customers rather than directly from your BigCommerce store.

When a customer takes a digital product to checkout, they are not asked for their shipping address unless their cart also contains physical products. Once their order is processed, they can download their digital file from a link in their order email, or from their storefront account if they created one.

 

Requirements and Limitations

Requirements

  • To create digital products in the control panel, the Manage Products and Create Products permissions must be enabled on your user account.
  • To create digital products via CSV import, the Manage Products and Import Catalog Entities permissions must be enabled on your user account.
  • Entities permissions must be enabled on your user account. To upload files to WebDAV, the Manage Settings permission must be enabled on your user account, and you must be granted WebDAV access.

Limitations

  • While there is no limit to how many files you can attach to a digital product, each file has a maximum upload size of 512 MB.
  • If you are using the modern Import/Export tool, you can only create digital products in the control panel.
  • Digital products cannot be offered for pre-order.
 

Adding Products in the Control Panel

 

Using the legacy Adding Products (v2) experience? If your store is using the Products (v2) experience, your control panel will look and behave differently from what is documented here. See Adding Products (v2).

Creating digital products from Products › Add in the control panel is a straightforward method for configuring individual products with all of their attributes. Use the instructions below to generate your product and attach digital files.

1. Add a new product, and select Digital from the Product Type list.

Digital highlighted for Product Type

A new section called Files will appear below Images & Video on the edit page. When you select Digital, fields that are not applicable to digital products are removed. This includes:

  • Weight
  • Width, Height, and Depth
  • Shipping
  • Gift wrapping
  • Pre-order availability (digital products cannot be pre-ordered)

2. To attach a product file, scroll down to the Files section. Attaching a product file in BigCommerce is optional. If you want to use a third-party service to deliver digital goods, you can skip these steps and proceed with entering the rest of your product’s information.

The list of digital files attached to a product

This section displays any existing files attached to your product. Click Upload File and enter the following details:

  • File to Upload — Choose between uploading a file from your computer or a file on the server.
  • Description (optional) — This will appear in the invoice and in the customer's account when they download the file.
  • Maximum Downloads — Limit how many times the customer can download the file. If left blank, customers can download the file as many times as they want.
  • Disable Downloads After — Set how long (days/weeks/months/years) after the customer's purchase that they will be able to download the file. If left blank, there is no expiration on the file download link.

Upload File section

3. Save and repeat the process for any additional files you want to include. There is no limit for how many files can be attached to a product. When you're finished, Save your new product.

Uploading Product Files to WebDAV

To use a file already on the server, it needs to be uploaded via WebDAV to the product_downloads/import folder. Files uploaded there will appear after selecting Use a file already on the server when adding a new file to your product. Attached files remain in the product_downloads/import folder, so you can reuse them if necessary.

Add your product files to product_downloads/import in WebDAV.

 

Creating Products via CSV Import

Using the legacy Import/Export tool, you can add digital files to products in bulk by uploading the file to WebDAV and linking to it in your CSV file. Stores using the modern Import/Export tool must add digital products manually in the control panel.

To learn more about the requirements and instructions for importing digital products, see Importing Variants, Images, and Other Complex Attributes.

 

Customer Experience and Order Management

When an order only contains digital products, the attached product files are immediately available for customers to download. The customer will get a link to download their files after completing payment, and will receive an email with a download link. Customers with storefront accounts can also download product files by locating the order in the Orders tab of their account, then clicking the Download button.

Customers can download product files in their storefront account from the Orders tab.

Paid orders that contain only digital products will have an order status of Completed. See Order Statuses for more information.

The download link for a digital product will stop working under the following circumstances:

  • The corresponding order is set to a Refunded or Cancelled status.
  • The customer has downloaded the file the maximum number of times.
  • The Disable Downloads After interval has passed.

Clicking the link will result in a message on the storefront reporting "Something Went Wrong... You have requested an invalid product download. Please try again."

If physical products are included in the order with the digital product, it will have to be manually set to Completed before the customer is given the download link.

 
 

FAQ

Do I have to attach a product file in BigCommerce?

No. Attaching a file in BigCommerce is optional. It is possible to deliver digital goods without attaching the product files by working with a developer and utilizing theme customisation. Refer to our Partner Directory to explore this option.

How do I delete files from a product?

Once a file has been attached to a product, it can be removed by selecting Delete from the Action menu.

Select Delete from the Action menu.

How do I update or replace a file?

Upload and attach the new file version, then delete the old file version from the product.

Can I assign unique digital files to different product variants?

No, digital product variants cannot have individual files assigned to them. However, you can create a pick list option on a product which offers different digital products in a bundle.

Can I update a single file attached to multiple products at once?

While you can upload the same file to multiple products, the files themselves are not shared across products. You cannot update or remove a file from all products by editing a single product.

Can I edit/customize the download link email sent to customers?

Yes. The email template can be found in Marketing › Transactional Emails. See Customizing Emails for more information about editing this file.