Odoo 17’s hidden feature for selling digital products

Overall, 8 product types are predefined in Odoo standard 

Before we dive in, let’s have a look at the different product types in Odoo to understand how the process of digital product sales & delivery differs from the rest. Generally, there are:

• Consumable products: Physical products that are always assumed to be in stock, and quantities that are not necessary to track or forecast (e.g., nails and screws, toilet paper, coffee)
• Storable products: Tracked physical products with storable counts (this type can trigger reordering rules)
• Booking Fees: Charging a fee for a booked appointment – needs the Calendar app & Pay To Book module
• Combo: Creates discounted products sold in bundles – needs the POS app
• Event Ticket: Selling tickets to event attendees – needs the Events app
• Event Booth: For participants who want to have a booth at an event – needs the Events app
• Course: Selling online courses on your website – needs the eLearning app
• Service product: Non-physical products that do not need connections to other Odoo apps. These are sellable service products that are not measured by stock counts – for instance a billable hour of consulting measured by timesheets that automatically triggers a Task or Project once paid for. This is also the type we will use for digital products but more on that in a bit.
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Odoo’s Service type simplifies non-physical product sales & delivery

Odoo makes it easy to sell and deliver digital products like software, eBooks, and videos through its Service product type. These digital items, which you can’t physically touch, are sold online and are vital for businesses that need a system to handle everything from the initial sale to the final delivery.

With Odoo’s Service product type, you can manage not just digital products but also other types of non-physical services, such as consulting hours. The key difference between them is how they’re delivered. For example, when you sell consulting services, Odoo sets up tasks that a consultant needs to complete. But for something like an eBook, it’s all about making sure the buyer can download it right after they pay. Even though both are digital, setting them up in Odoo varies quite a bit. 

To know how to configure the Service Product Type to sell your digital products, dive into our tutorial!

Configuring digital products in Odoo changed with Version 17

In previous versions of Odoo, to sell digital products or even just attach documents like manuals or guides to any of your products, you would have to actively enable this feature. For instance, in Odoo 16 you would have to navigate to Website > Settings > Shop – Checkout Process and check the box for Digital Content.

Odoo 17 skips this process and enables it by default. For those who don’t know yet or are used to the old setup, this is where it can get confusing – but by no means more difficult! Odoo 17 works with minimal predefined features to achieve the same goal, eliminating the need to activate extra settings and new tabs. 

How to sell digital products in Odoo 17: a step-by-step guide

Now let us look at how easy it is to set up different types of digital products and set them for sale on your website!

FYI: to follow this tutorial, you will need to have the Sales, Website, eCommerce & Accounting apps installed

1. Create a new Product

Go to Website > eCommerce > Products > Products

Once there, click on New to create a product and fill out the new product form with the following information, every other field will fill automatically based on these settings:

• Can be Sold
• Product Type > Service
• Sales Price (add your value here)
• Category / Tag (optional, add the ones relevant to you)
• Image (optional)

We created a product called “eBook” as an example, but this point is also applicable to any other type of digital product – be it a software, whitepaper, video, etc. 

2. Configure your product documents

Once you have created and saved your product, click on the Document smart button above the form. You will then get a page that prompts you to upload documents to your product. Click on New.

In the new document form, you will get two document options to choose from, File and URL.

As we’re creating an eBook, we can add an ePUB / PDF file. If you’d like to create a Software product, for example, you could add an URL instead. 

In both cases, you will need to check the following settings:

Sales > Visibility > On confirmed order

E-Commerce > Publish on Website

File Document – eBook sample

URL Document – Software sample

3. Publish your Digital Products & start selling! 

Go back to your Product form and click on the Go To Website smart button, where the icon will be currently showing up in red.

You will be redirected to your new Product’s website page. There you will need to click on the toggle button to switch your web page from Unpublished to Published.

Your new digital product is now ready to be bought!

4. Simulating a digital product sale

Now that the setup is running smoothly, check out how the sale will play out below! We added our two sample digital products – “My eBook” and “Software” – to our cart.

5. Sales simulation – how to obtain your digital product documents 

To access the purchased digital product, users have to go to their shop account section. Navigate to My Account > Sales Orders. There, click the one pertinent to the digital product order placed.

You will find Payment Confirmation along with the purchased eBook and Software attached to the page.