A product can be something you ship, a file the buyer downloads, or both. Downloads sit in the same cart and the same checkout as everything else you sell, so a buyer can get a printed planner and its PDF in one order.

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Set up a digital product

1

Open the product

Go to Products and open the product, or create a new one with its title, price and photos as usual.
2

Choose what customers get

For each variant, set Customers get to:
  • A physical item: you ship it. This is how every product starts.
  • A download: nothing is shipped. The buyer gets files.
  • Both: you ship the item and the buyer also gets files.
3

Upload the files

Add the files on the product page, up to 2 GB each. A file can belong to every variant, or only to one (for example the Lightroom version and the Capture One version of a preset pack). Buyers get the files of the variant they bought.
4

Check the limits and save

Each product has a download limit and a number of days its links work. Keep the defaults or change them (see Download limits), then save.
Files are kept private. They are never on your storefront or behind a public web address. A buyer can only download them through their own order’s link.

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How buyers get their files

As soon as the payment goes through, the buyer gets their downloads in three places:
  • The thank-you page lists the files and links straight to them.
  • An email, “Your downloads are ready”, with the link, the list of files, how many downloads they have and when the link stops working.
  • Their account. The order shows a link to its downloads.
Every link opens the same downloads page for that order. Each click starts the file straight away. When a link has expired or a file has been downloaded as many times as allowed, the downloads page says so and offers to send a fresh link. The fresh link is always emailed to the address on the order, never to an address typed into the page, so nobody else can request someone’s files.

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Download limits

In an order with several digital products, the link lasts as long as the longest of their settings, and each file keeps its own product’s download limit.

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Checkout without a shipping address

When nothing in the cart ships, checkout doesn’t ask for a shipping address, a delivery method or shipping rates, and shipping is free. The buyer gives only their country, and a postal code where their country uses one, so the right sales tax can be worked out. Express wallet buttons don’t ask for an address either, and PayPal doesn’t ask for a shipping address. When the cart has both a download and something that ships, checkout works as usual. Shipping rates are worked out from the items that ship only.

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Buyers in the EU

EU law gives online buyers 14 days to cancel a purchase, but that right ends once a download starts, if the buyer agreed to it. So when a buyer in the EU or the wider European Economic Area has a download in their cart, checkout shows a box they must tick before they can pay:
Start my download now. I understand I lose my 14-day right to cancel once it starts.
The time they ticked it is saved on the order. This helps you follow the rule; it isn’t legal advice, and your own terms are yours to check for the places you sell.

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Risky orders, refunds and chargebacks

  • Risky orders wait for you. When the payment provider flags an order as high risk, its downloads are held and the buyer isn’t emailed. The same happens when a later fraud check rates the order highest risk before anything was downloaded. Open the order and send the downloads if you’re happy with it, or cancel it.
  • Downloads turn off when you refund the whole order or every download in it, when the order is cancelled (including a high-risk order cancelled automatically), when the buyer opens a chargeback, and when the card issuer warns that the payment may be fraud. The buyer’s link then shows that the downloads are no longer available.
  • Returns. Downloads can’t be sent back, so they never appear in self-serve returns. Physical items in the same order can still be returned as usual.

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On the order page

An order with downloads has a Downloads card that shows:
  • whether the downloads are on, waiting for you, or turned off, and why
  • each file, how many of its downloads the buyer has used, and when it was last downloaded
  • when the link stops working and the email it was sent to
From the card you can:
  • Send the downloads of an order that is waiting for you.
  • Resend a fresh link. The old link stops working, the new one starts a new period, and the download counts start again.
  • Turn off the downloads, for example after you’ve refunded the buyer some other way.

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What happens to fulfilment

A download has nothing to ship, so it’s marked fulfilled as soon as the order is paid. An order with only downloads shows as Fulfilled straight away. Downloads are never sent to your suppliers or fulfilment services and never get a shipping label. In an order with both, only the physical items wait to be shipped.

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Moving from Shopify

Importing products from Shopify or from a CSV file keeps each variant’s “requires shipping” setting, so a variant that doesn’t ship on Shopify comes in as A download. Files aren’t part of an import: add them on each product page. If you change a product’s files later, past buyers keep the files they bought. Removing a file stops new buyers getting it but never breaks an older order’s downloads.

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For agents

Your own agent can set up and look after digital products over the PlatformDTC MCP server: Each tool’s inputs are in the tool catalog. For the dashboard API (uploading files, the digital_files list on a product), see Products.