Managing WooCommerce Digital and Downloadable Products

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Table of Contents

WooCommerce Products Menu

Let’s take a look at handling digital and downloadable products.

From the WordPress Dashboard, go to the left navigation menu and find the Products menu. Click on “All Products”.

WooCommerce Products Menu Sidebar

In WooCommerce it’s possible to list both physical products and digital or downloadable products.

Edit Downloadable Products

There are many similarities between physical and digital products, but there are some different attributes that can be assigned by working with purely digital items. Edit the digital/downloadable product to see what these options are.

Within the Edit Product page, you’ll be able to add a title and description just like a physical product.

Further down the page, you will see an area for Product Data. This area contains several tabs running down the left side, all of which offer various configuration options for products.

For more information on product set-up, watch our video on Adding and Managing Products.

WooCommerce Virtual & Downloadable Products

Note the checkboxes at the top of the Product Data area – they are labeled “virtual” and “downloadable”.

Both are important in this case.

A virtual product is a product that is not physical and will not have shipping options.
A downloadable product is one that, as it says, will allow the customer to download a file or files after purchase.

When working with digital products, make sure to mark the “virtual” checkbox. When working with downloadable products, make sure to check both the “virtual” and “downloadable” checkboxes.

Additional Editable Product Fields

Additional fields on the General tab allow you to:

Set the product price
Attach one or more files for download
Set download limits on your files – this means the files can only be downloaded X number of times before they must be purchased again
Set an expiry if you want the download link to end after a certain number of days
Choose the tax status of the product
Choose the tax class of the product
Assign a coupon to the product

Further down the page, you have the ability to add a short description, manage product reviews, and customize membership settings. Membership settings are handy when you want to make a certain product only available to those who are enrolled in a membership program.