When creators ask us "should I sell a course or a physical thing?" the honest answer is: it depends on your leverage. Here is the framework we use with new sellers on ZYVONS.
Margins
Digital products often carry 80–95% gross margin after platform fees. Physical products, especially with shipping and returns, rarely exceed 40–60%. If you're a solo creator, margin buys you time — which buys you the next product.
Scale
One digital product can be sold to 10 or 10,000 buyers with almost no incremental cost. Physical products require inventory, warehouse space, restocking cycles, and someone to pack boxes. Scale isn't automatic — it's a decision about how much operational weight you want to carry.
Speed to launch
You can launch a digital product this week. A physical product typically takes 4–12 weeks between prototyping, sourcing and shipping the first batch.
Support
Physical products come with returns, damaged shipments and address problems. Digital products come with access issues and refund requests. Both have support, but the type is very different — digital support is text and clicks, physical support is emails, carriers and inventory.
Taxes and compliance
Selling digital goods internationally triggers VAT/GST rules; ZYVONS + Stripe handle the collection on your behalf on eligible countries. Physical goods trigger customs, HS codes and country-specific import taxes for the buyer.
When each one wins
- Sell digital when: your leverage is knowledge or a skill, and you can teach or automate the result.
- Sell physical when: your leverage is a brand, a design, or a manufacturing edge, and margin per unit is defensible.
Most creators we work with start digital, use it to fund the audience, and then layer physical merchandise on top of an already engaged customer base. That order — audience first, digital next, physical last — is by far the most survivable path.