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How To Sell Videos Online

If you’re looking to sell videos online directly from your own website, there’s a new option that makes it extremely easy.

Built into the latest version of Sell Media is a new feature that analyzes the type of file uploaded, and presents additional options specifically for video sellers. See how easy it is to start selling videos in the preview below:

Video thumbnails are displayed on your store archive pages. The layout options found in Sell Media allow you to customize the number of columns displayed on the store archive page. By default, video thumbnails will be displayed in a three column grid, like this:

Sell Videos Online

When you hover over a video thumbnail, a Preview link will be displayed over the video thumbnail, like this:

sell-videos-preview

When you click the Preview link, the Preview Video and Buying Options will be shown in a popup directly on the same page:

sell-videos-popup

Users can either buy the video directly from the popup or they can save it to their Lightbox.

The video detail page shows additional file info (File Type, File Size, Length, and Bitrate), which might be useful for your buyers:

sell-videos-detail

Pretty neat, eh?

The Requirements – How To Sell Videos Online

  1. Install It – To sell videos online, you need to have a self-hosted WordPress website with our free Sell Media plugin installed. If you don’t have a WordPress website, hop on over to our recommended WordPress Web Hosting page and signup for an account. You’ll get up and running in very little time.
  2. Configure It – Configuring the Sell Media plugin takes about five minutes. Read the full instructions on the official documentation page.
  3. Upload Videos – After you have the software installed and configured, you’re about 1 minute away from posting your first video in your new online store. The next section below describes this in detail (or just watch the video above again as a refresher).

Uploading Videos

You need three things to get started:

  1. Source Video File – This is the file that buyers are purchasing. (Consider using our Amazon S3 extension to store your large video files in the cloud.) Video files should be saved in the QuickTime MOV or MP4 container. Use one of these codecs for best quality:
    • Apple ProRes 422
    • Apple ProRes 422 HQ
    • H.264
  2. Preview Video – This is a preview of your source video file. Upload it to any of the video service providers supported by WordPress.
  3. Video Thumbnail – This is a screenshot image your video. It is displayed on archive and checkout pages on your website.

In addition to the three files required to sell a video, you should also consider doing the following:

  1. Add a Description – Describe your video in detail to your buyers.
  2. Assign Keywords – Assign keywords to your video. Keywords are the key to returning good search results to your buyers.
  3. Assign a Creator – Add the name(s) of the creator(s).
  4. Assign a Collection – Collections can be used to group common videos. For example, if you have three video collections (Documentary, Short Films, and Motion Graphics).

When you’ve completed the video upload process, click the Publish button. Congrats, you’re done!

Cloud Storage For Videos

If you plan on hosting large video files or lots of video files, we highly recommend storing video files on Amazon S3. Storage is super cheap and redundant. Our Amazon S3 will move all new file uploads to your Amazon S3 account. When a customer purchases the video file, the download will be served from Amazon.

Get Started Now

Ready to start selling videos online? Download the Sell Media plugin today!

Visit Sell Media To Download

2 responses to “How To Sell Videos Online”

  1. Duncan Avatar
    Duncan

    This is awesome Thad! is it available already?

    1. Thad Allender Avatar

      Thanks Duncan. Yep! It’s available in version 2.2 of Sell Media.

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