If you go to my eBay store you will see this message:
“Due to eBay policy changes I am shutting shop for about 2 weeks. Don’t worry, I will be back with a whole range of new products soon. Be sure to check out my About Me page.”
http://stores.ebay.com/PlanetSMS
As I spent most of last week creating content for my subscribers via this blog so far I have never really got anything done for myself:
I now have about 6 products to update, I have autoresponder messages to change plus a ton of other stuff to do.
I need to work on that first and will be starting by re-vamping www.ninetydaypowerseller.com/.
Plus to make matters worse I am in the final process of moving home. This policy change could not have came at a worse time, so I don’t want to make the change from digital to physical items before I move.
If you have bought any of my products in the past over the coming weeks you can expect them to change a lot as I add new material. These will be changes for the better. If you have bought any product from me you will be entitled to a free update.
So for anyone wondering what’s up with my eBay business now you know. I will be back soon …
… back with a bang 
Thank you.
John Thornhill
22 Comments
Tracey Edwards
April 1, 2008Great to hear! Really looking forward to seeing all your new updated products.
Good luck with the house move.
Tracey
Ian
April 1, 2008Does anyone know of any CD Production/Fulfilment companies based in the UK? I am a UK based seller intending to sell my CDs to UK customers on eBay UK. If I use a USA based fulfilment company my understanding is that I will have to state the “Product Location” is the USA (rather than UK) on my eBay Ads otherwise I will risk having my eBay account suspended. Also, if one of my UK customers receives my CD shipped from the USA will the Royal Mail require them to pay a £20 “Import Duty” fee (as they have done to me in the past) before they will hand over the parcel greatly annoying my customer, generating an avalanche of negative feedback and PayPal chargebacks? I like the idea of CD Production/Fulfilment companies but it seems suicide to risk using a USA based one if selling on eBay UK to UK based customers.
Sue
April 1, 2008I just wanted to say how impressed I’ve been this week with all your hard work John, and also the sheer professionalism that you’ve shown, not only in sorting out your own problems but with helping everyone else too. (And it’s not easy to impress Brits these days!!)
I’m only just working on my first website, and intend to explore the possibilities that ebooks present at a later date – which is why I’m on your list – you’re simply the best!
It’s obviously been an enormously stressful week for you, so please try and take a little time for yourself – get down the pub for a couple of hours with your mates or something! And make sure you get enough sleep and good food. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say a big ‘thank you’. I hope the move goes without too much hassle – in 2 or 3 weeks time you’ll be settling in and enjoying your new house, and you’ll also be getting your business back on track – bigger & better and with an army of loyal supporters!
All the best,
Take care,
Sue (down in sunny Devon)
Jim
April 1, 2008John,
It’s just a wave..it’s not the ocean. Your a bright guy this is a new opportunity and it will be fun to see how you recover and prosper.
Regards,
Jim
Ken Schumacher
April 1, 2008Hi John,
And you’re also in the midst of your coaching program. As one of your students, let me extend a sincere thank you for keeping up with us as well as with everything else going on. I wish you the best of luck, but I know you can do it and will be a smashing success. I have greatly appreciated all your guidance and the care you have taken for not only your coaching students but for all your customers and subscribers. You are a good example of how to run a business.
Take care,
Ken
Shari
April 1, 2008Ebay sure did pick a great time, didn’t they – for US and Canadian sellers, they made this announcement right in the midst of our respective tax season! Thank you for the idea to put a message right up in the Ebay store & “closing shop” until organized. I had been trying to update each of my listings one by one, but it is very time consuming, and I’ve already had a few customers email me wondering why the download links don’t work for the items they’ve bought. “Uh, cuz I was too dumb to make sure you couldn’t buy the ebooks that are digitally delivered!”
A lot of learning experiences with all of these new changes, to be sure ;P
Thanks for all the time you’ve put into helping us John,
Shari
Dave Ovenden
April 1, 2008Hi John,
Good luck with the house move and thanks for all the helpful free advice you’ve made available over the past week or so.
Best regards,
Dave Ovenden
Zara
April 1, 2008Note for Ian (above) – John is one of us Brits I believe!?, so I’m sure he’ll know of a 3rd party in UK to dropship data CD’s – I’m putting my infoproducts on a flashdrive – looking for a program to add a cataloge front end like the shop – if John could come up with a licence option for us to resell the products via a ‘shop on disk’ formula – it would be a great way to make sales – off-line as well as on-line
Importing goods – last time I imported anything there was a rule that any item below ‘about’ £14.00 didn’t incur import duty or tax – so in theory if you were dropshipping CD’s from US aslong as the single item value was below $30 dollars (excluding packaging)your customer wouldn’t get stung for taxes or duties
– if you have a more expensive item – you might want to make it into a series of 3 CD’s sent out in three installments like a subscription ? – just ideas – check eBay’s forums for latest tax info – loads of good advice there!
Paul Guilfoyle
April 1, 2008Hi John
Thanks for the enormous efforts you have been putting in and for the quality information and inspirational attitude.
You deservedly have many loyal fans.
All the best,
paul
Ana-Maria
April 1, 2008Hi John,
Thanks for all your guidance in this ebay digital delivery problem. Things are looking much better after your video and report.
Good luck with your house move. I will be awaiting your return.
Cheers,
Ana-Maria.
Free Wordpress Videos + MRR + Website
April 1, 2008Hi John,
What a week it’s been for you, and now you are announcing you’re on the move as well. How do you do it?
I, too, wish you well with the move and the transformation of your business to the physical media world. And thanks for everything you’ve done for us.
On a different note, I am not seeing what I expected to see on eBay.com today. According to an announcement on their blog, The Chatter, they were going to shut down all digital delivery items by today and refund sellers’ fees. But there are still tons of items in the Everything Else > Information Products category being offered through digital delivery. The figures don’t add up, either: All Items -> 19314, Auctions -> 11444, Buy It Now -> 45036. Huh? By the way, those figures are for all items not just for those delivered using digital delivery.
Best wishes.
Nick
Leona
April 1, 2008hi john. thank you also for giving your time and insight and ideas and blog posts to help us all out. it is really encouraging to have such professionalism witnessed here. thanks everyone for all of your comments and thoughts too. it sure is encouraging.
Phil Rogers
April 1, 2008I too have closed my ebay shop, but I shall not be re-opening it.
I have now completely revised the way I trade and ebay doesn’t feature very highly in my new business model.
So ebay will be losing my ebay shop subscription, mye listing fees and sales commissions.
I’m sure it’s only a drop in the ocean to them, and even if all ebook retailers did the same thing it wouldn’t hurt them.
But I’m voting with my feet and walking away.
Paul Bergman
April 2, 2008About three months ago, just after the first of
the year I was going to open a store but…
Something inside me kept saying wait. It made
no sense because I have been reading and buying
your stuff for a while now.
The timing seemed so right…
But for some unknown reason this time I actually
listened to my little voice and now it all makes
sense.
Change is hard, change is good, change is a b…
Good luck with everything,
Paul Bergman
Harjit Irani
April 2, 2008Hi John
I know you are busy and have no time to read this. I am very impressed with your hard work that you have shown for all the last week. This is to help us your subcribers. Thanks again.
Roosevelt Cooper
April 2, 2008Hi John,
I did a search on Ebay today for ebook and there’s only a little over 5000 listings on there. I believe the week before it was at 15000. By the way many of the listings up there are actually up there illegally. They are offering digital downloads and they are not appearing in the classified ads section.
It looks like once Ebay catches wind of this and shuts them down there is going to be a huge hole in the market for digital products. The smart sellers that are able to capitalize on this stand the chance to profit immensely from this change.
Roosevelt Cooper
http://www.web204mlm.com
David
April 3, 2008Hallo, Guys!
I was asking eBay Customer Support about Classifieds and got basically a form letter BUT this one had a NEW WRINKLE in it I had not seen before! If anyone has any more information on it, I would love to read it. Among the usual stuff put out at this point from eBay was this:
***Note***
Classified Ad listings do not generate Feedback unless you are using Best Offer.
Huh? This was from someone who signed himself:
Sincerely,
Zack D.
eBay Customer Support
Well, Zack, you could have explained THAT ONE a bit more!
Anybody hear this before?
Regards, David~
David
April 4, 2008Hallo, Again!
I just found a seller of ebooks and wallpapers on eBay who has solved the non-digital download problem by selling/sending a postcard through the mails to his winning bidder. On the card is a Redemption Code that will allow an instant digital download of the digital product he has sold them. Pretty clever, and if you are in a far flung part of the world a postcard is a lot less heavy than a CD/DVD and a lot less apt to get lost!
I wonder how this will work out for him?
Best, David~
Interesting solution! I imagine, that after the Redemption code has been used for a limited amount of times, it expires.
Just guessing. I know that the script I used for delivering digital downloads via a preset download page could expired after an hour, a day, two days, a week – whatever I set the script to do for that particular product.
Aus
April 7, 2008why don’t people with digital items move to wagglepop which doesn’t have listing fees and which virtually looks the same as eBay or move to ecrater which is entirely free. eBay is not the only game in town people.
Roosevelt Cooper
April 12, 2008I’m curious how is everybody doing with Ebay? I put some of my auctions up as classified ads to see how they would do. So far not a single sale. No inquires via email either. I do have one person who has added my product to their watch list. We’ll see how it works out.
I did a search for ebook. It’s now down to a little over 2000 listings. There are still a lot of people selling digital products though. I see some people are selling CDs. It seems like most people though aren’t making any more money.
I have a digitial powerseller that I watch. Based on searching her completed items, it looks like she’s still doing her normal volume of sales. It looks like what she did was just tack on an extra $2.97 shipping fee and added to the auction description that the product is on a CD-ROM. She also added a link to the auction for international buyers saying that they can’t buy her auction but if they click on the link they can buy it via digitial downloand. The link takes you to her Ebay store where she has classified ads set up for the same auction.
I’m going to watch her a bit to see if she maintains her powerseller status and if so, I’m going to buy a CD-ROM off her to see what it looks like. I’m curious to see if she’s got a professional package like John is talking about or if she just burned her package to a standard CD and shipped it.
Roosevelt Cooper
http://www.web204mlm.com
Marc Sampson
April 12, 2008Hey peeps,
I just wanted to make a quick post to say thanks Aus for telling us about wagglepop and ecrater. I have had a quick look at them and I see what you mean about wagglepop looks very similar to eBay. I will have a browse around it now and ofcourse ecrater.
I had never heard of them before. Surprising really as I have been doing a lot of research lately on selling on other selling platforms as I am in the process of creating my first product which will be about making a profit by selling outside of eBay. I actually came up with this idea before eBay came out with this ban, so for me, I think it may be a good thing, certainly as far as my first eBook is concerned. If anyone is interested keep an eye out on my blog by clicking on my name above and opting in to be the first to hear more about it.
John, I want to extend my thanks for everything you have done for your readers, subscribers, customers and coaching students especially since the digital ban and also while moving house. I take my hat of to you.
Good luck with the move and don’t forget to enjoy some time with your family too. You know what they say, all work and no play….
Marc Sampson.
http://www.marcsampson.com
Step By Step Income
April 15, 2008I have sold things on ebay many times, as has my wife, and I think they really screwed things up changing their fees and so forth. I personally know many people who have shut down their ebay stores because of the changes. Glad your here and best wishes on the move!
Ronnie
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