What is the difference between buying a digital licence and buying the physical version?

If you have recently thought about buying an original licence for the activation of Windows or Office, you have probably asked yourself whether there are advantages or disadvantages to buying a physical licence or an online licence. The answer: yes and no.

First of all, it should be mentioned that the online sale of licence keys is nothing new. Even Microsoft has fully adopted online sales of most of its software products. If you visit Microsoft's website, you will hardly find any software products that are physically delivered. And this is because they have recognised several major advantages of selling licences and products through digital channels (we will look at them in a bit more detail later).

But one can also argue that physical products are also sold in physical shops, and yes, they are, for very different reasons (which we will see a little later). So let's get to the point.

Advantages of purchasing licences and digital products:

Well, Microsoft does this for virtually its entire software division, and there is a good reason for it.

Availability

If you buy the product online with email delivery, you will receive your product immediately after the payment has been processed. With Licendi, for example, the waiting time is less than 5 minutes. You don't have to wait for the seller to get on the road and process your order, or for a delivery service like UPS or DHL to get the package on its way. And you don't have to wait tirelessly for them to miss the delivery date and tell you that you weren't home when in fact you were, so you have to drive to the collection point to pick it up. With digital shopping, you can forget all this nonsense. When you buy online, you do have to make sure you have a good internet connection and it may take a while to download the product, but while it's downloading you can relax and do something else to pass the time.

Costs

Let's now turn to the question of costs, which, in case you haven't noticed, are much lower compared to buying the physical product. This is simply because adding all the physical components to the product simply means a much higher outlay. And because the product is already so cheap on the second-hand market in the case of Office 2019 Pro Plus or Windows 10 Pro, the cost of the physical product and shipping can increase by up to 50%.

Maintenance

Because it is an online product, the seller already knows that you bought it from them, so any problems are usually dealt with and resolved much faster. You no longer have to search for the receipt that you buried somewhere on your desk or even threw away. Just quote your order number and that's it. The next and very important point is that with some products you regularly get free upgrades if you own the physical version.

Our conclusion on online and traditional shopping?

Buy online without physical delivery. The bottom line is that you get the same thing for sometimes even half the price and you have all the above advantages and very few disadvantages of buying online.

If you have any questions, drop us a comment or give us a call!

Greetings,

Your Licendi Team