You can now sell a download on PlatformDTC the same way you sell anything else. An ebook, a template, a preset pack or a printable goes in the same cart and through the same checkout as your physical products, and the buyer can download the file as soon as the payment goes through.
Until now, selling a file next to physical products meant a second system: a separate app with its own checkout, its own customer list and its own receipts. The file and the thing it belongs to ended up in two orders. We built downloads into the product, the checkout and the order instead, so one purchase stays one order.
One setting per variant
Every variant of a product has a setting called Customers get, with three answers:
- A physical item. You ship it. Every product starts here, so nothing about your current catalog changes.
- A download. Nothing is shipped. The buyer gets files.
- Both. You ship the item and the buyer also gets files, for example a printed planner and the PDF version of it.
You add the files in the Files card on the product page: drop them in or choose them, up to 2 GB each. You can rename a file, remove it, and choose whether it comes with all options of the product or with just one, so a preset pack sold in a Lightroom version and a Capture One version gives each buyer the files for the version they chose.
Files live in private storage. They are not on your storefront and have no public address anyone could share. A buyer reaches them only through the link for their own order, and each download starts from a link that works for five minutes.
The buyer has the file before they close the tab
As soon as the payment goes through, the buyer finds their files in three places (unless the order is waiting for you, more on that below):
- The thank-you page has a “Your downloads” card that lists the files, with one button to go to their downloads.
- An email titled “Your downloads are ready” carries the link, the list of files, how many downloads they have and when the link stops working.
- Their account keeps a link to the order’s downloads.
The downloads page shows your store’s name, the order number, the date the link works until, and each file with how many downloads are left and a Download button.
By default a link works for 30 days and allows 5 downloads of each file. Both are per-product settings under More options in the Files card: a large video course might allow fewer downloads, a template pack might allow more, from 1 to 100 downloads per file and from 1 to 3,650 days.
When a link expires or a file is used up, the buyer doesn’t have to email you. The downloads page has an “Email me a fresh link” button, and that link is always emailed to the address on the order. It never goes to an address typed into the page, so knowing someone’s order link isn’t enough to get their files sent somewhere else.
A checkout that only asks what it needs
A download has no address, so a checkout with nothing to ship doesn’t ask for one. The address section becomes a short billing address: the buyer’s name, their country, and their postal code where the country uses one, because sales tax still depends on where the buyer is. There is no shipping line, no delivery choice and no shipping charge, and the checkout’s shipping promises are hidden. Express wallet buttons and PayPal don’t ask for a shipping address either.
When the cart holds a download and a physical product together, checkout works the way it always has: the buyer gives a shipping address and picks a delivery option, and only the physical items are shipped. The download arrives the same way as in a download-only order.
The EU’s 14 days
Online buyers in the EU have 14 days to change their mind. For digital content that right ends once the download starts, but only if the buyer agreed to that first. So a buyer in the EU or the wider European Economic Area with a download in the cart sees a box they must tick before paying: “Start my download now. I understand I lose my 14-day right to cancel once it starts.” Without the tick the payment is refused before any money is taken. The time they ticked it is saved on the order.
That box helps you follow the rule. It is not legal advice, and your terms are yours to check for the places you sell.
When an order goes wrong
A file can’t be taken back once it has been downloaded, so the things that protect a physical order happen earlier for a digital one.
- Risky orders wait for you. When Stripe rates the payment elevated or highest risk, the downloads are held and the buyer isn’t emailed until you send them. The same happens when a later fraud check rates the order highest risk before anything was downloaded. An EU order that arrives without the buyer’s agreement to start the download also waits for you.
- Unpaid orders wait for the money. If the payment hasn’t come through yet, the downloads go out by themselves once it does.
- Refunds and chargebacks turn downloads off. Refunding the whole order or every download in it, cancelling the order, a chargeback or a fraud warning from the card issuer all switch the link off. The buyer’s page then says the downloads are no longer available.
- Downloads aren’t returnable. They never appear in self-serve returns. The physical items in the same order can still come back as usual.
What you see on the order
An order with downloads has a Downloads card. Its status reads Sent, Link expired, Waiting for your OK or Turned off, with a line that says why, which email the link went to and when it stops working. Each file shows how many of its downloads the buyer has used and the last day they downloaded it. From there you can send downloads that are waiting for you, send a fresh link (the old one stops working and the counts start again), copy the link, or turn the downloads off, and turn them back on later.
Because a download has nothing to ship, an order with only downloads is marked “Download only” and fulfilled straight away, with no shipping section. Downloads never reach your suppliers, your fulfilment services or your shipping labels.
If you remove a file from a product later, buyers who already bought it keep their download. Removing a file only stops new buyers getting it.
Moving from Shopify
Shopify marks each variant as requiring shipping or not. Importing from Shopify, from a store link or from a CSV file (the “Variant Requires Shipping” column) keeps that setting, so a variant that doesn’t ship on Shopify arrives as one that doesn’t ship here. The files themselves aren’t part of the import: you add them on each product page.
Your agent can do it too
If you run your store with your own agent over the PlatformDTC MCP server, it can set all of this up. dtc_upsert_product takes requires_shipping on each variant and the download limit and link length on the product. dtc_add_digital_file copies a file in from a public link, for every variant or just one, and dtc_list_digital_files and dtc_remove_digital_file manage them. For orders, dtc_get_order_downloads shows what a buyer has used, and dtc_resend_downloads, dtc_release_downloads and dtc_revoke_downloads do what the buttons on the order page do. Sending a fresh link and sending held downloads both email your customer, so those two wait for your OK. Every change it makes is listed for you under Agents → Activity.
What it doesn’t do
We kept the first version to files. There are no licence keys, no streaming video lessons and no per-buyer watermarking. A download is a file the buyer keeps.
Where to find it
Open any product and look for Customers get on its variants. The full guide, including the limits, the EU rule and what happens on refunds, is in the docs.