As being a blogger selling an ebook or personal digital goods is common but the problem is there is no any proper payment method to accept payments from our customers. Paypal can be a solution for most of the users but it is not accepted in all of the countries therefore here in this post I will guide you to sell your digital downloads without any issue.

Before we begin let’s assume that I have created an ebook to increase an Adsense earning, and I want to sell that ebook for $2. Now, here in this post I will use a demo ebook as a digital good and will sell it to my visitors.

Note: I am using a demo ebook as well as the screenshot shown here in this post are also captured from demo transactions.

You can use amazon.com to sell your ebook but guys we are talking about selling an ebook here from our blog not from any other third party website.

See: SEO Tips and Tricks to drive more traffic from search engine

Tools required before selling digital goods using credit or debit card

Easy Digital Downloads

It’s a powerful and free e-commerce plugin and lets you add additional functionality to sell digital downloads. There are other plugins like woo commerce that allows you to use your WordPress site as an e-commerce store, but this plugin is specially designed to sell physical goods and therefore to sell a digital product we need a powerful plugin like easy digital download.

It accepts several payment services like Paypal, Stripe, 2checkout and other hundreds of payments merchants. You can check out more detail on its official website.

2checkout Account

2checkout is the payment processing company that helps you to accept credit and debit cards directly from your site. It’s a leading global payment platform that allows online businesses to accept online and mobile payments from buyer worldwide. They will provide an API integration to integrate payment method on your site and within few hours you can start receiving payments

2checkout Payment Gateway extension

As I already mentioned that 2checkout supports the on-site purchase and lets you use credit/debit card to receive on your site or sends customers to off-site and allow them to complete the purchase on 2checkout.com, but if you use easy digital download plugin, you need its paid extension to use 2checkout as a payment method. Don’t worry I will provide a free alternative as well.

My Story Of using 2Checkout as a Payment Gateway

If you are the regular follower of ITDigitalworld, you may have noticed that I haven’t updated my blog for several months. It’s because I am a student as well as I usually take some web developing jobs. When I was developing my client’s website, I noticed that they were facing a hard time to accept payments from foreign customers. If you are not aware of my country’s policy, then, to be honest, we are not allowed to do any international transactions, and that’s the reason they were facing difficulties while receiving payment from sales.

They contacted me to solve that issue and after analyzing their requirement, I used 2checkout as the payment processor and therefore now they don’t have to depend on Nepali bank to make any international transactions. They are now using 2checkout to accept and Payoneer to withdraw their funds.

I am telling this because 2checkout doesn’t limit you in the boundary as Stripe does. Almost all country support 2checkout, and now you don’t have to worry on accepting online payments.

See: How you can make money online without any investment?

Sell Digital Downloads using Credit/Debit Cards

Now, let’s get started by installing the plugin; easy digital downloads. Go to Plugins > Add New, search for the plugin and type “easy digital downloads”  and install and activate the plugin developed by Pippin Williamson and Company.

As I have already created the ebook that I want to sell online therefore now, I will upload this pdf into my server. The uploading part is a bit tricky, instead of uploading it inside of Media tab you have to upload it from a new menu called Download. Hover to Download tab and select Add New.

A new window will appear to add your new file along with its title and its description. Now, I will upload a new digital product and set its pricing from the pricing option tab. Below the pricing option tab you will find an option to upload your ebook. Click on Upload a file to upload it to the server.

You can find several other options like download notes which let you add special instruction to your customer in the purchase receipt.

You will get a shortcode as well as a dedicated page to sell your ebook. As I want to sell an ebook on my custom page, like in review post or other sections like widgets therefore instead of using the dedicated auto generated page, I will copy the shortcode to add the Purchase button.

Now, I will create a new page to add the download button inside of it. I am creating review post for my ebook. Paste the shortcode or you can even click on the “Insert Download” button inside of the page to display the “Purchase Button.”

We have successfully added Purchase button on our page, but it is still not working because we haven’t added any payment method yet.

To use 2checkout as a payment method, you have to buy an extension from here. Don’t worry there is also a free alternative available so we will continue with that option.

Go to Plugins and search for  “2Checkout for Easy Digital Downloads” developed by Collizo4sky. Install and activate it.

Go to the Downloads tab and select Settings > Payment Gateways > Gateway Settings. You will find 2checkout as a payment method select it and save it.

You can get a 2checkout configuration menu below the payment gateway tab. Register for 2checkout account and Paste the account number and secret word which you can grab from 2checkout.

As I have already created a 2checkout account, I will show you how you can get the Account number and Secret word.

Sign in with your 2Checkout account.

Click the ACCOUNT tab > SITE MANAGEMENT sub-tab. Scroll down to find the Secret Word field. You will be able to enter the Secret Word in the field that is under Direct Return and above the Approved URL field. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

Scroll down to find the Secret Word field. You will be able to enter the Secret Word in the field that is under Direct Return and above the Approved URL field. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

You can find more detail here at 2checkout’s help section

You can find account number at the top right corner below at your username.

So, after inserting the account number and secret word you are ready to accept payment. Share the page with your visitors and start selling your ebook online.

I hope you have learned to sell digital downloads online using the 2checkout nd easy digital download plugin.  If you have any other queries, please mention them in a comment below I will surely help you to solve your query. To be more clear on this topic, please watch this video by ShoutMeLoud.