Digital Asset Marketplace Examples + How To Set Up Your Own

A digital asset marketplace allows creators to sell digital products like photos, courses, templates, and music directly to individual customers. You can sell digital assets on a third-party platform like Etsy or Gumroad, or sell them from your own ecommerce store.

Selling on third-party sites, while convenient, has some trade-offs, like high commissions, limited access to customer data, and little control over how your brand appears to customers. Self-hosting addresses these issues, and this guide shows you how to approach it. 

Learn what makes digital assets important, how digital asset marketplaces work, and how to start the right kind of marketplace that aligns with your specific goals. 

What are digital assets?

A digital asset is any digital product that can be owned, sold, or traded. In ecommerce, digital assets typically fall into a few categories:

• Creative files. Photography, stock footage, music, podcasts, graphic design files, fonts, and 3D renderings.

• Educational content. Online courses, ebooks, guides, and how-to documents.

• Software and code. Website themes, plug-ins, and specialized code snippets.

• Templates and tools. Planners, calendars, presets, and spreadsheets.

In decentralized finance, the term “digital assets” typically refers to stores of value like digital currency (e.g., cryptocurrency). In ecommerce, the term means something different. It’s a way to turn knowledge, skills, and creativity into scalable products. Create the asset once, and you can sell it indefinitely without restocking a shelf.

What is a digital asset marketplace?

A digital asset marketplace (DAM) is an online platform where creators sell digital products. Digital asset marketplaces act as intermediaries between creators and buyers, whether hosted on a third-party platform or hosted yourself. Several popular platforms cater to specific niches:

• Shopify. Allows you to create your own ecommerce store for selling all types of digital assets. 

• Etsy. Useful for creators selling digital downloads like planner templates, digital art, and fonts.

• Gumroad. Popular with creators selling niche digital art, ebooks, and courses.

• Envato Market. A hub for developers and designers selling website themes, templates, and plug-ins.

• Creative Market. Specialized for artists and freelancers selling fonts, photos, illustrations, icons, mockups, and more.

• Thinkific. Focused on educational digital products like courses and memberships.

An example of digital assets in ecommerce

Moment began by selling physical photography gear (like phone lenses and cases) and eventually expanded into a digital asset marketplace. On an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, founder Marc Barros describes the company’s evolution from a product brand into a marketplace for digital assets like look-up tables (which are used for color grading), Adobe Lightroom presets, and educational courses.

Marc notes that selling these digital products fundamentally changed their relationship with influencers and creators, turning it from a one-way street (asking for reviews) into a two-way business partnership where creators could effectively monetize their own digital tools. Moving to Shopify helped them handle the complexities of digital delivery and global commerce.

“[The creators] were innovating on features faster than we could build separately and faster than any other platform was doing. We finally made the calculations that it’d be easier and cheaper to run on Shopify,” Marc says. “Having a platform that does commerce well has actually helped a ton. It’s allowed us to go back to what we’re really good at, which is helping people find the right product.” 

Third-party vs. owned digital asset marketplace

While a third-party marketplace offers convenience, a self-hosted solution gives greater control. Each path has benefits and downsides. Here’s how they compare:

Third-party digital asset marketplace

Third-party marketplaces have built-in audiences, and the plug-and-play infrastructure takes care of secure payment processing and (often) global tax compliance. But as a digital business scales, the drawbacks become clearer:

• Fees and commissions. Third-party marketplaces can impose high fees and commissions that cut into profits. Amazon, for example, keeps an average of 30% of each sale from independent sellers.

• Brand control. Creators have limited ability to customize their storefront and build a distinct brand identity. 

• Customer data access. These platforms often restrict access to customer data, making it difficult to see into customer behavior to better inform your business decisions.

Building your own digital asset marketplace

Building your own digital asset marketplace gives you control over how you (and other creators) sell downloadable products directly to buyers. While this approach offers autonomy, it requires that you take full responsibility for driving traffic to your site and managing the initial technical setup and app integrations. Launching your own DAM has the following benefits:

• Full ownership and control. You own the content, the customer relationship, and the branding. 

• Lower fees. Instead of high per-sale commissions, you typically pay the base fee for your ecommerce platform plus the standard payment processing rates.

• Integrated ecosystem. On ecommerce platforms like Shopify, you can install apps to expand your capabilities and manage specialized features like memberships and affiliate programs.

How to sell digital products on Shopify

On Shopify, enable digital product sales by unchecking the “physical product” setting; this ensures the system can fulfill products automatically and not charge customers for shipping.

Upload your videos, music, graphics, or documents using the Shopify Digital Downloads app. Set any usage limits, such as a maximum number of times a customer can download the file or an expiration date for the link. Add high-quality preview images or video trailers so customers can get a sense of the product’s value. 

In the inventory section, leave the quantity untracked to ensure the digital file doesn’t appear out of stock. 

Note that consumers living in the European Union (EU) must pay a value-added tax (VAT) on digital goods at the rate that applies in their own country, regardless where your store is located. In some jurisdictions, you don’t need to charge sales tax on digital products. Check with a local tax expert to make sure you know the requirements in your region.