You don’t always want to sell physical goods. Your skill is in being able to make things. The problem is that going to freelance websites to sell your skills won’t work anymore.
It is much better to make your own website so you can show off as many of your digital goods as possible. And Gumroad can help you with this.
It is designed for artists who want to sell their work. But is it worth it and the right thing to do?
Here, we’ll look at this online platform’s features, prices, and how it makes money. In the end, you should be able to decide if you want to bring your talent here and sell from this platform.
What’s Gumroad?
Gumroad is not a place to buy and sell online. It’s a place where you can build your own website or landing page and show off your work. When you sign up for an account, you can make a link to what you are selling. You can then share this link on social media or send it to your clients directly.
When the client clicks on this link, he can buy what you are selling, which could be digital goods, written materials, music, and so much more.
You will deliver the orders through Gumroad, which is also where the customers will pay.
You don’t work with Gumroad like you would with an online market. There are hundreds of other freelancers who offer the same services as you do on online marketplaces. Customers then have to decide which of you is the best fit for their needs and budget.
With Gumroad, you can send a client what amounts to your own online brochure. It doesn’t charge you a lot of money, and it has great analytics that can tell you how your customers act, which of your services are most popular, and a lot more.
How does it work?
Before you can use Gumroad, you have to make an account. Next, you need to set up your payment information, which includes how you will pay your fees and how Gumroad will send you cash from your earnings.
The next thing to do is to make a portfolio. Here, you can add samples of your work, write a short bio, add a photo of yourself, or add products. If your customers click on the link you sent them, they will see this profile.
Once this is done, Gumroad will send you a link that you can share with everyone. You can share it on social media, on your website, or you can even print out flyers to hand out.
People can choose to “like” your link or “follow” it. If they decide to order from that link, they will need to enter their credit card information to get the job or order started.
After they pay, they’ll get a link that lets them download their order. Now, Gumroad will send the money to your account, which is what they do every Friday.
Keep in mind that you have to pay fees before you get paid, so you need to figure that into your prices.
Features Of Gumroad
Gumroad is more than just a social media site, even though it works like one. It has a lot of tools for marketing and analytics that can help you increase sales.
Checkout with payment
When you use Gumroad, you get a shopping cart that customers can use to put their purchases in. This shopping cart comes with a payment gateway where customers can enter their credit card information or pay you with PayPal.
You can get paid by direct deposit or through PayPal. If you live in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia, the direct deposit will be made in the currency of your country. If you don’t live in one of these countries, you can only get paid through PayPal.
As a seller on Gumroad, you need to give Gumroad your account number and routing number. This will make it possible for Gumroad to send money to your bank account. If you want to use PayPal, you should be fine with a Personal PayPal Account. A Business PayPal Account is not needed.
Also, once all the fees have been taken out of your earnings, you will get paid every Friday.
Gumroad doesn’t pay its members in any other way, like through Payoneer or Stripe. Bank account and PayPal are the only two ways. Bank accounts can only be used in four countries. If you are not from one of these four countries, you can only use PayPal.
Library for Customers
This is a feature that lets your customers sign up for an account and keep track of their online purchases in Gumroad’s database.
If you sell digital products, this is a great way to do it. For example, you might be a musician who makes short pieces of songs for commercials. After a customer buys something, he can leave it on Gumroad so he can get to it later.
You can also provide courses. In this case, your customers can either download your video courses or leave them on Gumroad so they can access them anywhere, at any time.
Since digital goods and products are what Gumroad is all about, a feature like this is a great way to bring in customers. The customer can get to the files whenever they want to use them. This is great for online classes because most people only study when they have a break.
They don’t have to use up space on their phones to store your files because they can get to them whenever they want as long as they are online.
Streaming on Demand
This feature works best for digital items that can be accessed right away. This is a great feature that you can use if you are a writer so that your customers can read your work right away.
For instance, you may have written a number of articles or guides. If a customer bought an article from you, he could read it right away. He didn’t have to wait for you to send him a copy or download it. They don’t have to sign up for an account either if they don’t want to.
But they have to download it to their device if they want to keep it.
This feature is great for on-demand products that can be owned by many people, like instructional videos, how-to articles, or even musical pieces.
Send Files
Since most of the things you sell are digital, it goes without saying that you need to be able to send files to your customers. You have the option to send files to a customer’s Dropbox or Kindle with Gumroad.
This is an automatic process, and all the customer has to do to start the file transfer is click on a link.
This is important because each customer has a different preference for how to get to his files. And something as simple as this file transfer service can make a customer want to buy your product right away.
From the customer’s point of view, he doesn’t have to buy or download another app just to store your files and read, listen to, or watch them.
You can sell anything
Gumroad was made mostly for artists and people who sell digital products, but you can also use it to sell physical goods.
The thing is that you can sell anything you made on this platform. So, if you make things like woodwork, crafts, or paintings, you can sell them on Gumroad.
You can also make offer codes for digital goods. These are coupons that customers can use to get lower prices. You can make coupons and discounts that are based on fixed amounts or percentages.
You can also sell in more than one currency. This is a useful tool if you want to sell things around the world. Most customers feel better when they buy in their own currency because it’s easier to see how much the price will hurt their budget.
When you sell something on this site, you can make different cover pages for it. Images, videos, and audio can all be used.
Movies can also be rented. Customers can rent a short film you’ve made, and they have three days to watch it. It’s like renting a movie from a big company like YouTube, Amazon, iTunes, or Google Play.
If you’re selling physical goods, it’s up to you to package, label, and ship the items. You can also make discount codes and have full control over your coverage by making your own codes. This means you can choose to sell only in certain countries or to everyone in the world.
You can also offer subscriptions through Gumroad. Gumroad will charge the customer’s credit card or PayPal account on a regular basis, but you need to make sure you deliver your products on time.
Analytics
The analytics feature on Gumroad is very powerful and can tell you how well your business is doing. You can grow your audience and learn more about your customers by using this feature.
From your dashboard, you can see how many followers you’ve ever had, how many of them have bought your product, and if your number of followers is going up or down.
You can also find out if people are more likely to buy your products from mobile devices or from laptops. The analytics feature can tell you how many people downloaded or just watched, listened to, or read your product.
If you know all of these things, you will be able to tell if your marketing plan is working. You can decide if you need to change your business strategy based on what you know.
Gumroad also has an app for iOS that can show you updates about how your sales are doing in real time. The Android app is still being made, but Gumroad is planning to release one.
Automatic Updates and Texting
You have the ability to send your customers an email update, especially those who have signed up for a subscription. So Gumroad is not only a place to sell things online, but it can also be used as an email marketing tool.
It’s a vital tool for making your customers feel like they’re important. If you want them to buy more of your products, you can send them discount codes or coupons by email. This should get them to buy more of your products.
You can also set up automated replies with your account. For instance, you can send a thank-you note to everyone who buys something. You can also make notes for upsells, and when a customer is checking out, he or she will get a message asking if they want to add another item.
Widgets
A widget is a small button you might find on your phone or on a website. If a customer clicks on it, they will be taken to a page where you can redirect them.
If you already have a website, the widget you can make here will help you. The widget has a “buy now” button that customers can click to add your product to their shopping cart.
With the widget, you can make buttons that let customers buy your products without leaving your site, or you can add the products you sell on Gumroad to your own site.
Social Media
You can share the products you sell on Gumroad on your social media pages. In these posts, you can tell potential customers why they should check out your Gumroad profile page and buy something from you.
You can tell them who you are, what you’re selling, and what the customers will get if they buy your product.
You can put a link in the social media post that, when clicked, will take the customer to your Gumroad page where they can learn more about your products and services.
Marketing for affiliates
This is the best thing about Gumroad. With this, you can make a program where sellers can resell your products and earn a commission.
Most of the time, you need help from another service provider to make this program. But with Gumroad, the price you pay each month already includes that.
Affiliate marketing is a way to get other people to sell your goods. In exchange, they get a cut of each sale. Affiliate marketing is hard because you need software to run it, keep track of it, and see how well it’s doing.
Gumroad lets you do all of these things, and you can keep track of each affiliate marketer’s sales and pay them based on how well they did.
Prices and fees
So, how much do you have to pay for all of these features?
Memberships come in two types. One is free, and the other is a paid account for professionals. You can make an account for free, but you can’t use all of the features listed here.
If you choose the free account, you can make as many products as you want and post them on your Gumroad profile. You can also sell as many products as you want each month. This is great because if you don’t pay a monthly fee, many online selling platforms like Amazon limit you to 40 to 100 sales.
But with a free account, you can only send four updates per month to your clients and only one automated workflow or message.
And Gumroad will charge you 8.5% plus $0.30 per sale for a free account.
For the Premium Account, you get all of the platform’s benefits and features. But you have to pay $10 per month, and if you pay for the whole year at once, you can save money and pay only $108.
With a premium account, Gumroad will only charge you 3.5% plus $0.30 for each sale.
With this account, you can send as many updates and workflows as you want, customize your Gumroad profile site, use third-party analytics, and do a lot more.
In a hypothetical situation where you sell a product for $10 each, you should only pay the subscription if you make at least 21 sales a month.
After all sales and subscription fees are taken out, you will have a net income of $186.35 per month from 21 sales of $10 each.
You will make a net of $185.85 with the free account.
The difference may not be very big, but as you sell more, you’ll save money on fees.
Summary
Gumroad is made for artists and creators who don’t want their selling platform to be limited in what it can do. You can usually list your services in online market places, but there is too much competition, and the typical transaction fee is 20%.
The most you can pay on Gumroad is 8.5%. Also, many online selling platforms don’t let you sell books, artwork, or physical products. Instead, they only let you make courses that people can sign up for.
Gumroad is unique because it is a program that lets you sell anything you make, like music, videos, tutorials, online courses, comic books, arts and crafts, and so much more.
