In this day and age, we all crave for some decent level of financial freedom. One way to do this is to create an opportunity or passive income that you can run while still working on your day job. So if you are probably wondering where to start, the next question to ask should be, "What is Amazon Digital?"
We have all heard about Amazon. Of the millions of retailers there are today, it's one of the largest B2C companies globally- it's pretty scary if you think about Jeff Bezos's world domination. But Amazon has mastered its hold on the market, with the largest selection of products and services, but as frightening as might, there's plenty of value for third-party sellers.
The sale of digital products is an alternative low-cost revenue stream that's also a hassle-free way to generate passive income. Whether this revenue stream comes in as a trickle or as a torrent will largely depend on the quality of products, how much time you have invested, and how well you market them.
We all start alternative income streams for different reasons; for instance, some simply want to make it big, while others hope to create a passive income stream that can eventually grow to replace their day job. Whatever the reason, diversifying revenue streams to finding new ways to earn passively is always a smart move. One of the best parts of it is seeing the amount of impact you put out, getting positive feedback for your work and knowing that you've helped impart your knowledge and talent in a way that helps others.
What Is Amazon Digital Services?
As the name suggests, Amazon Digital Services LLC is an electronic commerce company that retails digital services and products such as music, eBooks, software, music streaming, and more. In addition, Amazon Digital Services includes the different services and products that Amazon offers as part of its electronic commerce company offerings.
These digital services and products include things such as the Amazon Drive, Amazon Prime Video, Kindle Unlimited service, educational apps, video games, music subscriptions, among others. Amazon Digital Services is subscription-based, the Amazon Digital Services subscription that's paid either every month or on an annual subscription. As a buyer, you get free trials to try out what you are planning to purchase on the Amazon website, with a hassle-free option to cancel your Amazon Digital Services subscription whenever you choose to end the subscription in your account. In the long run, annual subscriptions are usually cheaper.
What Qualifies As A Digital Product?
A digital product could be described as any virtual item or digital service that you can pay for through a digital services subscription or download instantly. However, for an intangible product that you can't touch, it does have such high value that it's projected to hit US$331,685 M in 2022.
Video games make up the largest market segment, with a market volume projection of roughly US$175,060m in 2022. Other than video games, other big hitters include streaming movies/TV series, software, apps. Of this, Amazon Digital Services LLC takes up the bulk in market share compared to other platforms.
To the seller, this is good news since it translates to more exposure to the target market globally. This also works well for anyone in a niche market. Digital products can be created from one's own creativity, knowledge, skills and expertise. What's more, you don't need a whole film crew or team of software developers to help you with this.
Why Sell Digital Products On Amazon Digital Services?
- Low investment, which has the potential of high returns
- Digital products have proved more profitable than physical products since the margin improves over time, especially when you don't need to spend money producing more units.
- No inventory, cost of production, need for storage space, or shipping/logistics needed, shipping or rent hassle
- Automated delivery with passive income
- Amazon Digital Services is a convenient, affordable, and easy-to-use platform.
- Obscure to serve a niche market at a larger scale and globally as well
- Leveraging the shift towards the upsurge in online education and online courses, that's estimated to get to $319+ B by 2025, due to the impact COVID-19, with a 217% increase in student enrollment by the second half of March 2020
How To Sell Digital Products On Amazon Digital Services?
Amazon Digital Services focus on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. In addition, its delivery service subscriptions have surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide. With Amazon Digital Services becoming so popular, more content creators now see the need to get in on the action using an Amazon account.
Selling digital services and products on Amazon is a great way to earn passive income without taking care of any costly overheads such as storage space, etc. Sellers can also set up their Amazon Digital Services account to sell their digital services and products in a simple and straightforward process. What's even better, you can expect your accumulated sales pay after every 2 weeks.
If you have an Amazon Digital Services subscription and have any concerns or questions about your amazon account or digital subscriptions, Amazon's customer service team has proved quite efficient. You can also get in touch with them all through the week at any time of the day.
Thanks to the Amazon FBA program, many retailers are able to sell both physical products and digital services and products on their Amazon accounts. Some do this even while working in their full-time job.
PS: To become an outstanding Amazon seller, other than understanding the market, you need to start with the FBA program, which helps you understand where to start on your Amazon FBA business.
What Digital Content To Sell Off Amazon Digital Services Account?
Amazon offers plenty of spaces for aspiring entrepreneurs to earn their platform off the subscriptions and service charges. Here are some services Amazon currently offers on their site;
a) Amazon Prime Video
An Amazon Prime member with paid prime membership gets to access things that the rest of the nonprime members don't on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon Prime Video service lets Prime members stream their favorite shows and movies from any of their smart devices. In addition, with the Amazon Prime membership, Prime members get to access some channels on the Amazon Prime subscription, including HBO, CBS, Hallmark Movies, Starz, and so much more. This video service is part of the Amazon Prime membership plan.
b) Amazon Audible
Subscriptions on Amazon Audible works for Prime members who like to listen to audiobooks. Additionally, Prime members get free access to the Amazon Audible service, while non-prime members need to pay monthly. Finally, for non-members who want to try the service before committing, there's a 30-day free membership option.
c) Amazon Drive
Amazon Drive works pretty similar to Dropbox and Google Drive. Once you download the Amazon Drive app, you can save your files on Amazon's cloud drive. New subscriptions/users get their first 5GB for free. If you need a lot more space, you have the option of 100GB with a monthly subscription or 30TB with an annual subscription.
Additionally, there are other plans and subscriptions with different prices annually. You can directly download the app from Amazon.
d) Kindle Unlimited
If you love your books, the Kindle Unlimited subscription gives you access to millions of kindle books, audiobooks, magazines and eBooks. New users get a 30-day free app trial, after which there's a monthly subscription
e) Amazon Music Unlimited
Subscription and signing up on Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to millions of songs and podcasts on any device. As a Prime member, the subscription can be paid monthly or annually. If not a Prime member, then you can expect to pay a slightly higher monthly subscription. Initially, you can get a free listen trial, but you'll need an Amazon account.
f) Amazon Kids+
This is a child-friendly Amazon Digital Services subscription service by Amazon to give kids access to thousands of educational apps, books, movies, and video game. There are monthly memberships and subscriptions, but Amazon also offers these subscriptions at discounted rates that help members save quite an amount. You also get a 1-month free trial that helps members test out the plans.
Other Ways To Sell Digital Services and Products On Amazon
i) Books
For sellers who like to write books, Amazon offers at least 3 ways you can sell books. 2 of which are strictly digital. These include;
- Physical copies on Amazon, using the Amazon FBA platform
- Ebooks on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with 2 ways: digital and print on demand'
ii) Music
For music content creators, Amazon offers TuneCore, that's part of AmazonMusic, through which you can upload songs, for subscriptions on Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, and 150+ other stores globally.
Examples of digital audio products include:
- Instrument samples and beats
- Plugins for music software
- Sound effects
- Stock music
iii) Online courses
From your area of expertise, you can get a new source of revenue from the subscriptions of your online courses, which are not just limited to the traditional classroom environments, such as high school, university, or corporate training. What's more, you don't even need to be formally trained as an educator as well.
Here are some ideas of online courses you can teach:
- Tai chi
- Drone piloting
- Sewing
- Meditation
- Dance classes
- Yoga
- Laughter yoga
- Guitar lessons
- Juggling
- Professional development
- Resumes and Job search
- Photography
- Graphic Design
- Arts and Crafts
- Copywriting
iv) NFTs
In full, NFTs are Non-Fungible Tokens, which form the newer part of cryptocurrency. For example, NFTs form part of the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain, which stores more information making them relatively different from the Ethereum coin. Here's an article that explains NFTs in simply and clearly.
NFTs are riskier compared to other digital products on the list, but they're also a great option for anyone already creating digital art.
v) Software and games
There's definitely a large market growing exponentially, for both software and digital games, especially with the onset of COVID. If you have background training in coding or app development, these digital products are immensely lucrative.
Take into account that if you don't have the technical skill to do this yourself, then you could consider working with others. For example, software products could include mobile apps, desktop software, web apps, and others.
Amazon Digital Services Charges
Unfortunately, as the seller, you need to be aware of all the charges for Amazon Digital Services that are charged when your subscriber uses the Amazon app. Other than Amazon Digital Services' charge, some common unknown charges include the renewal fees and orders on Amazon Prime subscription by each family member.
Canceling The Amazon Digital Services
If you need to cancel your Amazon Digital Services subscription, select 'Manage Subscription' to find where to cancel and end subscription, which unlinks your bank account or e-wallet. However, your subscription doesn't t stop immediately. You can still access the chosen content free until the subscription expires. For example, the annual Audible subscription will run for a year even after you cancel Amazon Digital Services subscriptions after six months.
What Does A Digital Content Creator Need To Sell On Amazon?
A) Authority and expertise
Create credible content while continuously creating new content around your expertise and the rest of the things you have a passion for.
B) Focus and Consistency
Content creation is a number game that will probably account for 80% of your sales. Consistency here focuses on willpower towards what you're working on. If you struggle with these, don't worry. The best way to improve your focus is to ignore all the outputs and, instead, concern yourself with your inputs.
C) Marketing Skills
Once you've gotten the hang of things from the regular content, you'll also need to find ways to market all your content, improve on it, expand on the original concepts on Amazon Prime while you explore others. One way to sell is advertising on Amazon offers. This is a platform on Amazon that you can advertise your work through the PPC (pay-per-click). Additionally, there are other ways you can also use to attract, increase membership for various prime members, and create access for customers who are outside the Amazon platform.
For example, by learning to use some simple software tools such as Canva, you can create logos and backdrops. Additionally, you could also pick up a few design skills that you can use to build your brand through social media, alternative digital channels and email lists.
Frequently Asked Questions On Amazon Digital Services
1. Can PDFs be sold on Amazon?
Yes, it's possible to upload and sell PDFs in most major ebook stores. Amazon specially accepts PDFs. For example, PDFs are still more versatile and accessible than the fixed layout. In addition, there are particular categories of non-fiction that just work way better than in a fixed-layout format.
2. What's the average size of an eBook on Amazon?
Though they come at different prices, the average Kindle book comes in a size that's roughly 300 pages, or 75,000 words in text. Overall, the average Kindle ebook file comes in 2.6 MB size. Try not to go overboard on the length since, typically, an ebook is supposed to be rough, 2,000-2,500 words. This also helps to deliver of crisp and succinctly.
