I do recall some companies having BBSs however where you could download updates, and other utilities. This would be around 1987.
Shareware was also widely available on BBSs by around that time although it was also distributed on floppies at Computer shows and the like. When I had a small shareware company starting in the mid-eighties the process of taking orders was still very manual--most orders came by mail with a check and I sent back a floppy (which I reproduced myself) in a mailer with or without hardcopy docs depending upon if those had been ordered or not.