By
Sarah Harris
USB flash drives are a handy yet underutilized tool for eCommerce businesses that sell digital products.
With a small, lightweight profile, they are inexpensive to store or mail, yet they can deliver incredible security benefits, along with the opportunity to display your brand message in a unique or meaningful way. They can even reduce product returns!
Partner with Print Bind Ship, a leading third-party logistics (3PL) provider, to streamline your USB fulfillment needs. Our expert team can help bring your digital business to life with efficient, reliable shipping solutions.
Reach out today for a free consultation and discover how we can optimize your product distribution!
What Are Digital Products?
A digital product is any product you can sell online that lacks a physical form. These are software-enabled, intangible goods that exist only in the digital realm. Entire businesses are now built around digital products.
Let’s go over some of the reasons why you would consider using USB flash drives.
Pros to Selling Digital Products
There are numerous advantages to selling digital products.
Physical products — even those sold online via an eCommerce business — must be created, distributed, packaged, shipped, and stored at points along the way. Furthermore, all of this takes raw materials, time, capital, and other resources, including staff.
Digital products do away with all that, which in turn results in many advantages, including:
- Always Being in Stock: Digital products can easily and almost instantaneously be transferred to one or thousands of customers. You’re never out of stock!
- Low Overhead: One of the biggest advantages of digital products is they can be sold repeatedly, which means low overhead.
- Limited Barriers to Market Entry: Digital products have very low entry barriers. All you need is a marketplace account, a website, and a digital product. You can be up and running with little investment or risk.
- Lasting Forever: Because they aren’t subject to wear and tear like physical products, digital products stand the test of time.
- Large Profit Margins: Because digital products don’t face the overhead of creating and distributing a physical product, the profit margins are higher.
Popular Digital Product Examples
There are a huge variety of digital products on the market, ranging from eBooks to audio and video, to digital art, and more. Let’s look at some examples:
eBooks
People still love to read! Google Trends has found that eBooks are one of the top digital products that people spend money on.
Digital Templates and Tools
Digital tools and templates help professionals to make their jobs easy. Some common examples of tools and templates include:
- Web design icons and typefaces
- User experience kits
- Graphic design templates for flyers, posters, brochures, etc.
- Mobile business apps
- Resume templates
- Marketing templates
- Photoshop filters and plugins
- Pre-built (or “boilerplate”) legal documents
These types of digital products are solutions to common pain points for specific audiences.
Courses and Educational Materials
Online courses and educational materials range from traditional education topics to training employees on soft and hard skills to hobbies and even self-improvement.
Audio and Podcasts
Audiobooks and podcasts cover as many topics as you can imagine. This market segment represents anything a user can download and listen to at their leisure.
Photographs and Digital Art
Digitization has changed photography and allowed digital art to arise. While photographs are still images from the real world, digital art can start as a photo or be created purely from a computer. Therefore, using USB flash drives to sell or distribute your art can be worth the consideration.
Video
Videos on educational and entertainment topics abound in the digital world. They offer a greater level of engagement with users by combining both visible and audible instruction or entertainment.
EPKs (Electronic Press Kits)
An EPK is a collection of electronic media provided by a musician, artist, team, or movement designed to introduce the user (presumably a journalist or booking agent) to the fundamental concepts that the group or individual embodies.
Using USB Flash Drives to Sell Digital Materials
You can sell all of the digital products listed above (and more) on a USB flash drive, which offers another layer of connection to your consumer base. Custom USB drives enhance your brand and provide unique experiences to customers.
Here are just a few of the ways that custom USB drives can enhance your business:
Adds a Layer of Security
USB flash drives keep exclusive content secure and make it harder to pirate content; they lack the vulnerabilities of online cloud storage.
Tap into a Unique Marketing Strategy
Some people still like receiving packages in the mail — after all, opening them can be lots of fun! Exclusively digital content lacks this feature. Nonetheless, pairing your USB flash drives with other materials, such as a custom kit or subscription box, gives your customers an exciting experience.
Multi-Purpose Use
USB flash drives are easily updatable and can be used for a wide range of purposes; if it’s digital, you can put it on a USB!
For example, fitness coaches can produce workout videos and meal plans, authors can include written and audiobooks and musicians can share music and album art.
Customize Branding
Custom USB drives make great promotional products for effective branding, which is extremely important to the success of your business.
Furthermore, part of building your brand is reminding your customers what you do. Every time they use your USB drive, they’ll see your logo and connect with your brand.
Reduce Returns
eBooks have a shockingly high rate of return, partly because they’re easy to pirate and lack the value customers place in a physical book.
However, books on USB flash drives give customers something tangible, which increases their value by a quirk of human nature. Consequently, they are much less likely to be returned!
Ready to Leverage USB Flash Drives?
Custom USB drives have numerous advantages for businesses that offer digital products.
These tiny drives enable customers to enjoy the magic of receiving a product in the mail and opening it. They make the digital tangible, which appeals to users on a fundamental, human level.
Moreover, USB flash drives are small, portable, cost little to ship, and are useful to customers. They are an excellent way to promote your brand, and they offer enhanced security for your digital products.
Now that you’re familiar with the many advantages USB flash drives can offer for your digital products, are you ready to see what they can do for your business?
Working with a third-party logistics ( 3PL) company like Print Ship Bind can help you manage fulfillment for USB! Contact Print Bind Ship for a free consultation and learn what we can do to bring your digital business to life!
FAQ
Outsourcing USB flash drive fulfillment to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider offers several advantages. It can reduce overhead costs, provide access to advanced inventory management systems, and offer scalability to handle fluctuating order volumes. Additionally, 3PL providers often have established relationships with shipping carriers, potentially leading to better rates and faster delivery times.
To ensure quality and security, choose a fulfillment partner with experience in handling electronic devices and data storage products. Look for providers that offer secure storage facilities, have protocols for handling sensitive information, and can provide certifications or compliance with relevant data protection standards. Additionally, discuss their quality control processes for checking USB drives before shipping and their procedures for securely loading data onto the drives if that service is required.
Yes, many fulfillment services can accommodate custom packaging and branding for USB flash drives. This can include custom boxes, sleeves, or cases with your company’s logo and design. Some providers also offer services like laser engraving on the USB drives themselves. When selecting a fulfillment partner, inquire about their capabilities for customization and any minimum order quantities for custom packaging options.