Hi,

This is fine if you sell thousands of items.

I’ve been selling on eBay for over two years and average one e-Book a week.

May as well give up.

I’m in Australia and the minimum postage for a CD is 5 quid – who’s going to pay that?

Nobody that buys on eBay, thats for sure. They wouldn’t pay 5 quid for the bl**dy book. LOL

The Grumpy Old Chef

Oh my God.. This is a huge blow…

However, shipping physical ideas indeed is a good alternative.. but john… I am based in India and suppose a person buys my CD from USA.. so I will ship through some courier service.. right? and do I need an export license to do the same?

I am confused.

Please guide me..

Ahh Well!!

Information publishers will just have to evolve again, That is what I like about this business, You are always learning!!
Onwards and Upwards, I can’t wait for the next installment.
Regards
Julie
Catalysthere

Hey thanks so much for tuning a negative into a positive!

Hi John,

Good post.

I had just learned about this a few hours ago and was pondering the pros and cons and you know this could be a great benefit for serious e-book marketers.

The vast majority of total junk presently being sold as information products or software is going to vanish leaving, hopefully, a better quality which translates into bigger profits.

That’s probably mainly wishful thinking but it’s a step in the right direction.

Ade

just goes to show you,
never have all of your eggs in the ebay basket. i feel for people who are depending on this income. ebay has put thousands out of business and i can’t wait for a new platform!

Great! (Heavy dripping sarcasm). Just when I thought I was ready to begin to sell and have pretty much got everything set up! I take the point about the physical items. Would it still not be possible to offer your purchaser a choice then direct them to your domain for a digital download, a bit like having a PDF instruction booklet for a toy? I wonder if it will be possible to offer split mail rates, one for the physical product and one for the digital delivery. I bet MyDD and SMARTDD are chuffed to bits with this new policy.

Well ok the SHOCK is almost over and it’s true. I thought it was April fool at first. We simply have to adapt to change. Yeah you may have issues with postal problems; you may have to look into how you are going to restructure your business. These things happen and we will always be faced with problems.

My first thought was to send the items on CD. You need to work out the cost of bulk buying CD’s, padded envelopes and add these to the delivery cost of your items. The cost will be minimal and no difference to the end result. You may even make more money as you can raise the price of a physical item, and with a good sales page it will sell. We will still retain Powerseller Status as you only need to sell 100 items per month.

Inside the envelope you can provide a nice printed sheet of paper like your download page, step 1 insert disk to your PC, step 2 use the read me file supplied on the disk, step 3 check out my blog or news letter for 5 free eBooks with immediate download and how to make a ton of cash and so on. This way you still get the signup to your mailing list and a chance to sell affiliate products, also your eBay fee’s remain the same.

eBooks and digital items are still going to be one of the lowest priced items on eBay, so you will still find buyers buying your products for feedback. But this time eBay cannot do a thing about it because you are selling a physical item. The only thing that will change is the way we deliver them.

John,
I didn’t believe it,I thought it was an attention catching subject.
So it’s true!
I am off to close my ebay account.I have nothing else to sell and I can’t do CDs because the postage will be higher than the cost of my ebooks.
Thank you so much for the information.

Beatrice.

What a great opportnity for some one to open a digital eBay. Maybe call it Digital eBay.

Keries

Can someone point me to some valid places to sell other than eBay.com?

In the past I have tried some other places, but they do not seem to be worthwhile. I suppose clickbank will become the superseller for eBooks once again?

Like many, I will also try to sell the info products, graphic design, and more via CD but this will really upset costs and potential customers.

Is there any way to convince eBay not to do this??

Good luck everyone!

~ DataWorkZ

Hi John,

Solution is simple

DONT USE EBAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s not the only online auction site.

Paul.

Universal Money Magnet
http://www.unimag.net

Just a thought but how do you define a physical product? Is a letter with a website URl a physical product? So we have come full circle with email being replaced by snail mail.

Keries

BTW if one lists any digital products in the classified ads, please note that it will cost you $9.95 up front for each and every eBook or digital item through eBay.com for 30 days listing. And eBay will also list their own ads on the pages in which you have no control over.

They say that the eBooks and digital items cost little to make, but not for those who take the time to research, market, and professionally make an eBook.

Please let us know the ruling on if one can sell via placing any digital items on CD, I for one would like to know more if it will be allowed, somehow though I doubt it.

And my next question is, for those that sell many eBooks and digital items, will they provide an easy method of removal or switching over, or will it have to be hand done for those that own the basic stores. Seems kind of unfair to do this to people and give only a week to make any changes to our own stores and such.

Hmmm. Positive, I have yet to see much to make it positive.

~ DataWorkZ

It seems odd. If they were concerned about feedback on cheap digital items being used to cheat the system why didn’t they just say that no feedback would count on items under £5 or whatever figure they think is appropriate.
Some websites sell for hundreds of dollars so how could they suggest that the feedback from those sales is not valid?
Tina

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416

This is the link that PlanetSMS posted.

I was thinking the same, if there was a way for us all to get together on this and approach eBay, maybe we can get them to change their minds.

Another note: most of us here do not sell just on eBay, some do. But with asking the question of where else to sell, I was trying to open it up for conversation to allow others to see other places to sell, not just by telling people where to go. And with people chiming in to say what works better for them and opinions on those sites will help make it easier for others to make a choice for other places to sell.

Do you think eBay will allow selling eBooks and digital items to sell? Their policy states no digital items in the auctions. So how is an eBook or digital item sold on CD going to really work? I think we need to see what eBay rules on this to see if this still is a good thing or not. eBay might still not allow digital items of any form, CD or physical delivery by mail or not!

But this certainly creates a show stopper of questions on this topic doesn’t it?

Good luck to all in the eBay digital boat!

~ DataWorkZ

Hello Jon,
Thank you for bring out this newsletter so quickly about this decision. I sell mostly ebooks in my Store. I do not believe in the Classified Ads at this time, they have proven not to work for me.

I wonder if Ebay is doing this has anything to do with the new feedback rule coming up in May…I came to the same conclusion as you, to put the Ebooks on Cd and mail them out. Yes, you can put extras on the cd that could bring you business to another website or back to purchase another cd in your store. The change is here, we can either adapt or take out business somewhere else. I believe Ebay must have a good reason for this, but wish they would have given us longer notice to fix out business…
Looking forward to your next newsletter,
MagiesPlace.info
Free Ebay item Advertising

LOL…… Come on John,
Be honest – You wanted more traffic to your blog so you bought ebay and made the policy changes ????

OK – maybe not yet…. hehe

What’s done is done – but one thing is for sure …..

There is a MASSIVE opportunity for people who ‘think outside the box’ to formulate new systems and methods to operate here…

And those who do and jump on it quickly will surely find more success and far more quickly than they probably would have under normal circumstances!!

I fascinated to see what comes out of the wash of it all.

Randy
http://www.SuccessAndYourHead.com

Hi John,

thanks mate for the very positive feedback to all the negative that may now resolve due to ebay’s decision, to ban digital sales on their auction site.

I am one of your pupils on the coaching course, however I was laid off a little because of an illness I had. This cost me 3 weeks so I am now going to catch up and get my e-book finished which I then have to put on CD and also on my website at http://www.digitalebookstore4u.com

You wanted to view our blogs John so I am killing two birds with one stone here, mine is http://www.geoffreyhadley.com
I will start posting now I am back on my feet and get some traffic going to it. In fact, I will post this comment I am writing now. Why not?

I can understand a lot of people getting p….. off out their, (especially Clive from Australia or “The Grumpy Old Chef” as he aptly calls himself), but what the hell, if this didn’t happen it would be something else.
If you don’t change what you are doing today, all your tomorrows will look like yesterday!

So changes take place and we have to adapt to them as best we can. We cannot sell digital products on ebay anymore! Well big deal. We will have to change things around and pick out the positive things that will without a doubt resolve out of this change in our online business ventures. Where there is a negative, there is always a positive and vise a versa. We live with this phenomena every day of our lives, but no one takes notice of it.
Well, now some people will, because it is now affecting their lives and their business.

Go for it people. As John rightly said, a lot of positive will come around due to this change and he will be there to help us out. He has already given you the path you may have to take and it is not a bad one at that. I am no Computer freak but I am sure that I can burn one of my e-books to a CD and wrap it into a neat little envelope with loads of data about me and my different business issues I have on the net. I think that is better than a digital delivery to be quite honest.
I will now contact my customer physically and I can personally hand him/her my details.
“People do not join companies, people join people”

Yes, we will have to change a few things around but, a change is always good.
You just watch how the clever people out there use this drastic change to their advantage.

See you sometime in the real world!

All the best and all success

Geoff

I discovered this new policy yesterday when i tried to upload my weekly sales listings for magazine subscription… they have been banned as of MARCH 24… SO, I figured… no problem I increase my dogital offering… so I went and created a few new ebook listing…

I discovered the new policy when I was unable to add the new digital products to my ebay store…

yesterday was one of those days…..

I too agree CD’s are the way to go… there is a learning curve but
Kunaki is the way to go…

I’ll be adding my stuff today… sure wish I had MRR to the Kunaki script… lol…

This will be a good thing… those of use who continue on will reap the rewards…

For me I don’t have a choice.. 90% of my income comes from my ebay store

from the announce ment they say the reason for the change is feedback manipulation issues real and perceived…

I think the real issue is all of the lazy people who are running 99 cent sales to build their lists… and the associated customer
service issues…

I know when I sell an ebook if I have any sort of melt down a long the way to the customer getting their purchase, many ebay user are quik to complain… the smaller the purchase the more they complain…

I get more complaints about my $1 items then I do my real money makers that sell for more then $10

My policy from day one has been to hit the refund button for any purchase if I receive the slighted negativity within my guarantee period…

JOe

Talk about being boned, this takes the prize! I was toying with a plan whereby I would basically give away large quantities of (almost) free stuff from my website in the hope that I could get free publicity. Reading this forces me to cancel that plan. Add to that Ebay’s 20-30% commission fees, and it almost guarantees I will never sell anything again on that site. I defy anyone to prove to me that they are making, rather than losing, money on Ebay.

I can seriously think that even though using a CD will be a good idea, it will also be time consuming.

Perhaps there are other options?

Thanks, John, for being so positive on something so potentially negative.

Unreal. I am a Power Seller and have a 100% feedback of 1598, with a 4.8 rating – I sell an ebook for 12.97. None of my feedback is from “feedback manipulation”. Why am I being punished? Well, onwards and upwards I guess.

Here’s a question – on a classified ad, are you allowed to put a PayPal button for payment, or a link to a page with a PayPal button for payment? I see others doing it. I guess the bad part about that would be that sales would not count towards Power Seller ratings, or feedback.

Good luck all!
Ken

I think this is a great new opportunity and opens the door to those looking to ramp up sales through classified ads. Shovel away the dirt and we may be entering a new era for digital goods on eBay. That article literally opens the door for anyone wanting to sell digital goods without penalty from eBay or feedback.

I look forward to the new challenge!

I guess you could still use DD and other tools like it, by having some kind of webstore and using ebay to drive traffic there? One good thing about that, is that there would be no listing fees. You could also offer two prices, one for it on cd, and another for downloadable.

I wonder if one of the reasons they are getting rid of ebooks is because there are lots of sellers who sell for one penny, and people who buy and sell for this price in order to inflate their feedback. For all we know, ebay could well be planning on buying or creating an ebook site, and advertising it on ebay like they do gumtree. Whatever plans they have, be sure its in their favour in the long run, not the individual sellers.

Also, there are lots of very rubbish ebooks out there, so it could seperate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You’re more likely to get bad feedback on a rubbish ebook if the customer is paying more for it on cd.

On a personal note, I’ve managed to lose some ebooks that I’ve paid good money for because my hard drive died. Two in particular I would have prefered to have them on cd, and wish I had transferred them to that myself when I got them.

I think planetsms is in a good position to start a download ebook auction site because he is quite well known and if other ebooksellers were to use it, they could help with getting traffic for it as a joint effort rather than just sitting there waiting for an item to sell. I’m sure other auction sites would get more traffic if the sellers plastered their name everywhere and helped get them more well known and not just leave it to the owner to sort out. It would be in everyones interest.

Seems strange that a leading internet company is moving away from doing things digitally and forcing people back to using old-school methods, surely their boffins could have come up with some way of stopping people manipulating their feedback. Ebay have got people just by the sheer number of buyers hit their site every day, but I’m sure there will be somebody out there that will rustle up an alternative digital product marketplace.

From what i think…
Ebay will be losing their sellers and customers soon… hmm

Create an ebook Marketplace.

Where everyone can buy and sell ebooks.

Hello! John thanks a lot for telling us.
Yes, we have to think positively, but we have to have a brain storm to get the best method or 2-3 methods from where each person can pick up what is best for that person.
This is what I am thinking:
1) we can have a classify add
2) from classify add we send people to a squeeze page, we collect leads – this is good, and now we are outside of eBay now
3) From squeeze page we send people to a pre-sell page with more that just one product, each product will have PayPal button. We have a PayPal account we can use it outside of eBay as well
4) We also have MyDD correlated with our Paypal acct., MyDD will send the eBooks digitally as it is doing now
5) Step 3) and 4) are outside of eBay and I suggest doing them in a different window, the people can come back and buy more.

In conclusion what I am saying is:
• We use classify adds just to use the eBay traffic.
• When we are outside of eBay PayPal and MyDD must work as usual.

I think we have to contact Socrates at MyDD and see his input on this.

Again thanks
Regards
Michaela

This is a very bad move for ebay. Before I even knew there was a change, I tried to change the title of one of my ebook listings yesterday. It kept prompting to change to the classified ad format. (All digital goods had to be in the ‘classified ad’ format.) So I kept going back and trying to change the format. There was not any classified ad format choice given. When you are selling a $15 ebook and they charge $9.95 for the listing PLUS their final value fees, plus their listing fees, (and lets not forget Paypal’s divvy,) ebay can just go jump in a lake. I have been very frustrated at them for YEARS and this just takes the cake. Its nice that John (and others) can stay positive about them. I am usually a very positive person. There is only one thing I’m positive about here though. Ebay is making a big mistake. They will lose a lot of business! No ones happy about this change! You might be adapting, but you’re not happy!

— TIP —

RE: “You need to work out the cost of bulk buying CD’s, padded envelopes and add these to the delivery cost of your items.”

Instead, use a fulfillment company to do all of this for you. I use Kunaki.com and it costs me $6.75. $5 of that is passed on to the customer. So for $1.75 I get a CD (in a DVD case) shrink wrapped and shipped internationally to my customers.

You can manually go to the admin area and fill out the order form for each customer. Beats manually creating the CD each time (or duplicating) and shipping it out yourself. Plus, they now take PayPal. You take your eBay payment via PayPal and turnaround and send Kunaki their $6.75.

I have some videos that show you how to create an auto-run data CD for digital items, and how to use Kunkai. I sell the Kunaki videos alone for $27, but I would be happy to put the videos together in a package for $7-10 if it would be helpful to anyone. These are licensed videos, and per the terms, I can’t give them away. But given the situation, I have no problem letting go for cheap if it helps.

If John feels this is a good suggestion, I’ll work something out with him for you guys. I won’t hi-jack his excelleng blog with an Ad.

Of course, as I understand it.. you can still sell digital items exclusively in the Classifieds for $10 (for 30 days).

Dave

Well to be honest I am not surprised with eBay. They have just become greedier and greedier. They seem to have this policy of giving with on hand and taking double away with the other!

To be totally honest I knew this day would come. It made me sick seeing people selling eBooks of 1 cent or 1 penny. I was totally against people doing that as it showed no respect to the eBook authors and no regard to the hard work that some authors put into thier eBooks.

There is no ways I am bowing down to eBay, I think I’d rather give up than break my right to freedom of movement, speach and anything else that is our right. I just cannot understand eBays thinking. There will be a lot of fees lost on their part. Soory I just needed to have a rant!!
Rant over….
We can remain positive and devise new ways to sell, new ways that’ll in the end make eBay the looser. eBooks sellers are crafty people and I am sure within a couple of weeks there will be a huge list (or eBook) of how you can beat the new eBay policy and new ways to make money.
John thanks for the notification.
Take care
Valda

John

I have great respect for your usual marketing, but this blog post title is misleading.

The policy at eBay states:

“To preserve the integrity of the Feedback system, effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.”

This interprets quite differenetly from “Digital Items Banned On eBay”

“Digital Items Restricted On eBay” would be more to the point, and avoid the Chicken Little syndrome.

I am a student of John’s coaching program and here’s how I see all of this…

“Where others see misfortune or coincidence we must see opportunity and providence. That is the true heart of an entrepreneur.”

To me, the solution is simple, There are 2 ways you can look at this and you just have to chose one or the other:
1) You can make this the excuse for your failure.
2) You can make it tthe reason for your success.
So how will you tell your story one year from now?

How many times have you tried to sell an ebook on eBay and seen that dozens of people have it listed for 1 penny?
If we really think about all the riff raff and over saturation of GARBAGE on eBay, I actually think its about time it all got cleaned up! When the trash is eliminated the gems will shine!

Here’s what I see in the near future…
A dozen new tutorial topics for ebooks to help people cope with this adjustment.
A brand new auction site Specifically designed for digital delivery sellers like us that will grow to rival eBay. (Perhaps created by ME!)

Many of you will become bitter and resentful towards Ebay. Thats OK, because humans inherently have trouble coping with change. But the reality is that there are some things you can control and some things you cant. Deal with it.

The key to survival is to quickly adapt. If you choose to sit on the pitty pot crying “poor me.. poor me..” you will get run over by entrepreneurs that are charging forward to look for new cheese.. LIKE ME!

To your success,
Omar-Martin.com

Suggested reading: “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Hi John,
Thanks for keeping us informed. I just cannot believe that
eBay would do this… seems like there would be much better
solutions to resolve the feedback issue. Banning all digital
items? I have sold a lot of websites on eBay, I suppose they
would fall into this category too??
I read through the other post, a lot of people looking for
another solution. I recommend Kunaki. They will produce
and ship your information cd, or dvd very inexpensively.
Valleres has a script that will integrate with Kunaki and
automates the entire thing, more here:
http://SoftwareKing.us/pro/kunaki.htm

Be Blessed!
Todd Moss
http://toddmoss.com

Agree with Omar (sort of)

As a complete noob who was just about to go live (having sourced quality products, set up my domain etc etc and basically followed all of John Thornhills teachings (plug!) this just may be the opportunity for a new generation of digital product sellers.

Omar is absolutely right in how dissillusioned (huge word!) one can become when you think you have a real quality product only to see 100 or so listed on eBay for less than 5p (old money!).

Perhaps ebook creators will now come into thier own. Maybe we cannot rely on resell rights alone. I personally think that the PLR business will soar (err, more than already!).

I am wondering how easy it would be to set up a site that allows info product exchange as well as sales.

If you are promoting quality then the classified add will work in your favour(?).

This is not the death of info products on eBay, rather a New Dawn.

ebook-bliss.com

PS – I will not be upset by this, or the fact that I have spent the last 5 weeks of my life setting everything up! I will take it on the chin and crack on! As a noob there were / are many hurdles in the way anyway, 1 more is not going to put me off!

Hi Everyone,

I think that eBay has finally realised that all the junk and illegal information products sold on its site is a real issue. Of course, their decision to effectively shut down the selling of downloadable products by forcing sellers to use classified ads will have a huge impact on the honest sellers, too.

I guess anyone who has been relying entirely on eBay for their business is now realising that maybe they ‘shouldn’t be putting all their eggs in one basket’.

As John says, “…look for the positives…”.

Nick

It’s all over…

When people are not ready to pay for ebooks worth $0.99, then who the hell they will pay $5-$10 for shipping…I have idea…John have big email leads…so why not start his own portal like ebay…a portal where we can sell ebooks.

Hi John,

I just bought your ebay manual – which I really enjoy & appreciate, thank you – when i noticed your email about ebay banning digital products from 31 Mar 08 – typical!

I’m with you – no point bad mouthing ebay – it’s their train set and they can do what they like with it. It will mean a bigger impact on the environment though – instead of downloads that have almost nil environmental impact, we’ll all be burning CDs and DVDs, with their plastic cases – lots of oil-based plastics plus the aluminium in each disk, and then the fuel to transport the finished item across the world to the customer – not green at all, and perhaps over time this is the angle used to get them to reverse their decision.

So, alternatives…? How about sending a letter in the post to each customer, providing them with the download details – perhaps we include in it a ‘free’ version of the report on paper, and the full version they download… using something like DLGuard to generate a download code that can only be used say 3 times, to stop abuse and download theft?

I wonder how long before somebody comes up with an alternative to ebay digital downloads… perhaps we now turn our attentions to ClickBank and CJ and the others maybe?

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Your manual still has lots of relevance, though I guess you’ll be updating it soon in light of this ebay development? I’ll look forward to an updated copy!

Thanks again,

Martin

John,

Digital sales can still be automated – via classified ads. I followed through on one or two such ads on eBay.com. In most cases there’s a link in the ad to a mini site selling the product. In one there’s a PayPal button that takes you straight to PayPal to pay for the product, much as you would do with a normal ‘Buy it Now’ transaction.

Regards
Trevor

Looks like there are going to be many people scrambling around for a way to use eBay after March 31. Be interesting to see what happens.

Question.
Let’s co-ordinate a co-op.
We’ll take profit shares in relation to our sales achieved, you want to sell for $0.01, It cost you profit at the end of the financial year.
Come on where are the Soft ware fundis? Write the soft ware.
Talk is cheap money buys the whiskey.
If you have a lemon, don’t throw it out cause iot is sour, put a little sugar and we have a lemonade. Opportunity par excellence!
Let me know, int134@gmail.com.
I’ve got a few bucks fopr the soft ware guys.
Why should ebay rule?
Money is a product of success. we made them what they are, we can dismantle them. Lets use people power!

Maybe ebay have bought shares in companies that make blank cd’s!

I have just stopped selling all digital items. Yeah this is going to be a pain but it is time to think “out the box”.

How about using Classified Ads to promote your item. If they don’t like that, then use it to promote your website. May be use Classified Ads to give away a free eBook – that has links to affiliate programs and to your website.

Don’t forget that we can still use Jim Cockrum’s ideas of building our list while moving physical items.

Don’t lose hope/faith. This is not the end, it is only he beginning!

P.S. – Make your voices heard at eBay Live this year !!!

I think Mark has got it right..Most of us use Ebay as a tool to not only sell e-books ,but as a platform to launch/promote our websites..So a quality ad with a link to our sites should achieve the same results.
Also if hard copy products are advertised on the Auction style listings with the offer of a digital download in addition to the hard copy then just maybe we can improve our business.
We always need to move with the times no matter how chalenging they are.
Luck to All
Kevin
http://www.collectivewealth4all.com

Been there and done thatand got the t-shirt with burning CDs and mailing them. This is what we had to do before eBay implementd the last digital item pilicy a couple of years ago. I’ve been trying to sell decent digital products on eBay since January, 2001 and eBay has never been able to make up their minds. The real problem is that so called power sellers with no scruples turn around and sell the same products for peanuts. The delivery is not the problem at all. We can go to the trouble of mailing CDs and the same thing will happen. Better to be on your own than to associate with eBay!

Okay, I’ve read all of these posts and I have come up with a partial answer.

Drop Shipping. I already sell real books and hard goods, I can be up to speed with cd books in a day or so. We ship everyday anyway, so why not? I have no idea yet what to charge for the service but I think on a net net basis I would want a couple of bucks per unit for my time. Obviously, I would not be producing made to order CD’s. I would be keeping you in compliance, any Bonus items could be delivered your way.

If someone can figure out out to automate this it would be great too.

Think about it, I’m sure others can do the same job I can. But the Huge advantage of working with me is that you can travel to San Diego and write it off as a business trip!

Thanks,

Charles

P!$$ on Ebay. Start using Ebid.net

Let’s see, maybe this would work. Set up your ad stating that you are selling the CD, then include a coupon in the ad, and where they can get the coupon. Include your digital download site after the payment with the coupon.

Just a thought.
Rob Lee

Ebay says they are changing the feedback policy, to restore buyer confidence and bring buyers back. By banning digital products, they will be costing buyers more money. Now buyers will incur shipping charges. Also it will inconvenience many buyers, as they want to have their products instantly.
Once again, Ebay will be penalizing honest sellers.

There is a way out for information product sellers. Obviously, you could sell your stuff on ClickBank, use classified ads on USFreeads, Freeads and other classified ad sites, other auction sites such as eBid, or even the new service that I have just discovered.

Don’t get too depressed! Stay positive.

Nick

Hi all

I don’t fully understand the implications yet but I am certain the industry will find ways around this.

There IS a site that’s way underused that I have used for selling and buying. perhaps we should crank up the status of this:
Go to http://www.ebid.net/ and choose your country. I’ve only tried the UK site. NO LISTING Fees and small final value fees.

it’s been suggested that web designers sell a CD with a link on the the actual site … so why do we not all do this with eBooks. Sell a Resource Guide to where the eBook is. Then simply send a printed ‘leaflet’ (not a CD) containing a link (which would expire after time).

I guess eBay wouldn’t like this .. but does their wording preclude this IF we are actually selling the guide? Isn’t this the same as those who sell guides to Police Auctions etc.

There are plenty of cases where the actual item is not delivered on eBay ie buying a holiday or timeshare or house. If a buyer goes to a web site …. isn’t this the same as Buyer Collects???!!!!!

Let’s get creative about this ….

John Gordon
The Infotainer

…who was just about to launch a range of Persuasion Magic info products in my eBay shop.

Well, digital delivery is on the way out anyway. Remember when itunes went out of business last week?

Seriously, as an ebook publisher who has been pirated on ebay countless times, I’m sort of glad about this, although I do feel bad for the legit sellers on there.

I haven’t really done much in the way of digital items on ebay myself, I have dabbled a few times, but I have mainly concentrated on physical items.

Is it a shock ?…….. Not really, it was always on the cards, not because there is anything wrong with Digital items on Ebay, but simply due to the amount of problems some sellers have created for the rest of Ebay sellers, and Ebay themselves.

What I mean, is some sellers cannot see the wood for the trees and simply go all out to make a sale at any cost by undercutting/discounting other peoples products, to such a degree that they ultimately become worthless, and there are some really great products that have gone down in value due to this.

I know there is a lot of value in selling a digital product on Ebay, cheaply, for the backend sales you can create etc.

I personally think this move will only improve the realtionship with Ebay and the sellers, which will then give the paying customer greater value for their money………. And as John stated, this is not something to be upset or angry about, as selling physical items will definately bring you in more profits than you will first realise . . . . . If anything, as a physical item seller myself, I’m going to be a little disapointed that now I will now be having more competition…… Ah well !

John
I have been selling nothing but digital products on ebay. I think this is huge. I could not beleive it yesterday when I tried to sell a ebook. I figure this new policy will put alot of people out of business. I am new to selling ebooks so I will just have to adapt. I been looking into new online auction sites last night and some offer free listing fees. I think this might acually be a good thing.
What if you list as a physical product (cd) then email buyer after payment and offer digital download. There has to be a way around it. Please John Keep me Informed.
I know you are probably writing the next new 90 day powerseller 2008 edition.
I am thinking of writing my own book to exploit this new rule of ebays.
Please email with any more info on this rule
Josh

While I’m not happy about the change because of the extra work it creates for me, Ebay is still the best deal going. Not to sound harsh to those of you giving up on Ebay, but good luck trying to make money elsewhere.

For starters, the keywords that I list in my Ebay auction, the average cost per click on Google Adwords is $0.61 to $0.91. I typically average about 20 visitors to one of my Ebay auctions. To get that type of traffic on Google, it would cost me anywhere from $12 to $18. Keep in mind search engine users are looking primarily for information. A much smaller percentage are actually looking to buy something. I would probably need to generate 100 visitors on Google to get 1 or 2 that want to buy. That works out to $61 to $91. That means I would have to sell a product that’s at least $100 just to make any money in that keyword!

On Ebay, right now, I’m getting 20 visitors for $0.45. Unlike search engine users, who are looking for information, Ebay users are looking to BUY something. That means you can generate sales with a much smaller amount of visitors. I’m getting 1 to 2 visitors per 20 to buy right now. I don’t know anywhere else on the internet where I can pay 45 cents and get 1 to 2 sales off 20 visitors. If you do, please let me know, I’m right behind you!

Other than giving up and going somewhere else, there’s two options available. You can go with the classified ad, like Ebay is suggesting or you can go with the physical product like John is suggesting. Both of these options may be a blessing in disguise.

Good luck trying to make money selling a 1 cent ebook or even a $1 ebook using the classified ad. Even at the $1 price point, you are going to have to sell 10 of them just to break even. Sellers that choose to migrate over to classified ads will have no choice but to raise fees. Buyers will have no choice but to pay, because they really aren’t going to get the information for any cheaper than what they can get it on Ebay even with the additional fees. This might very will INCREASE profits in my business if all my buyers have to pay me more money for the same product.

Good luck trying to make money selling a 1 cent ebook on a CD. When you factor in shipping cost, postage cost, time spent creating and preparing the CDs, time spent going to the post office, etc, it’s just not going to be practical. Again, sellers will have no choice but to raise their fees, just like with the classified ad listing.

Bottom line before we jump to conclusions, we really aren’t going to know how this is going to affect our businesses unless we test and track it. If physical products are not an option for you, put your stuff on classified ad, increase your prices and see what happens. Who knows, you might actually make MORE money that way than you are now. If physical products are an option for you try that. Again, with some of the suggestions made on this board, you might actually make MORE money doing that than you currently make now. You really don’t know until you actually TEST and TRACK it.

Roosevelt Cooper
http://www.web204mlm.com

yeah this is going to hurt us all! Well we sell there because its where a bulk of the webs traffic is… and we all know traffic = sales. Youtube has just as much traffic as ebay, ive already started promoting my products there and have been for some time now, and the results out do ebay. Its a simple system to learn, A good starting point would be the tube mastery system, found at http://www.tubemastery.com

keep moving forward!

Just a little bit more. I see above that somebody says Microsoft does not use eBay and they do well. If I was a big company like Microsoft I also wouldn’t use eBay. I have my own domain on which I do some selling. To say “just sell from your own domain with old way of getting traffic” doesn’t cut it. Not that easy. In fact bl**dy difficult and/or expensive. eBay’s classified ads doesn’t do it either. I will find some other ways but what do I eat in the meantime? Tis is not being negative, it’s being realistic.

Whoaa! Just when I was beginning to think I could start selling my own original e-books on Ebay! I’m a total beginner both at writing my own ‘stuff’ and selling anything at eBay!

Thank you John for alerting us all on this new policy! Do you think the exiting of Meg from her authority position and getting a new guy in there with new policies was a faction?

Anyway,John, I’ll be waiting for your new informational reports on how we should do the ‘new CD policy’ you are telling us about that can be handled by us beginners! And thank you all who posted here today. Your information on how you would or could handle this was much appreciated.

Kathlene Amerine

Hi everyone…..Ebay used to be my life and I had nothing but positive things to say until last week….

I just read that Ebay banned digital items. I have been with Ebay for over 10 years. I have mainly sold baseball cards and DVDs. I started selling Ebooks mid February and was doing well with about 10 sales day. Before Ebooks I had 450+ feedbacks and high DSRs.

Once I got into ebooks with 10 sales a day my feedback of course was going up but that wasn’t my focus, the sales were. I tried raising prices some on the ebooks but didn’t work so I lowered it back to 1 dollar and refunded the couple customers who bought. Thats the kind of seller I am.

Then Ebay emailed me last week closing my account stating I violated their Feedback Manipulation policy – because I was getting all that feedback from Ebooks without really shipping anything. I was appauled since I have been with Ebay for 10+ years without an issue. I thought selling Ebooks was ok on Ebay except for those selling for a penny just to get feedback. Believe me I wasn’t in it for the feedback – just for that extra gas money each week which was working. I already had high feedback and DSRs so didnt make sense to me. I have customers emailing me still asking what happened and shocked when I tell them. Ebay didnt seem to care about my 10+ years with them – only the past month.

So I am not surprised now they ban the digital items yet my account remains closed, my emails go unanswered and even contacting their office of the president goes unanswered.

Ebay is concerned about getting trust of the consumer but how can it do that if they rip the rug out from under you each time? They truly dont have good customer service and when you get email responses from them its so generic and preformatted with little concern for a customer. Thats why there is no trust in ebay.

I now have lots of free time since I am no longer selling my baseball cards and DVDs on Ebay. The kids are happy!

Hoping to find another Auction site who can give good service, reward loyalty and has good values.

Wow…I’ve been reading ALL your e-mails for the past few months and TODAY I went to PlanetSMS to see about purchasing the e-Book website…now what!!??!!
Thank you so very much for the information you continue to send out. I will read the blog daily to see what you have determined is the best thing to do. I know that there has been much scandal attached to dishonest e-Book sellers and it hurts eveyone!
Thank ypou so very much for mentoring us ALL.

Here’s a start for alternatives, UK based as I guess quite a lot of Johns readers are.

http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/auction.html

Here’s the US version.

http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/usauctions.html

I guess like a few on here have said, this was inevitable when you saw what had happened to the whole ebooks thing.

I for one see it as a potentially good thing, but I own up to being able to produce and ship physical product without too much hassle. We have several physical product web businesses already.

I do feel for those who are operating from home, obviously one big attraction was the auto-pilot way of running it.

Someone told me a few years back “Here’s a box, you’re not in it, GET THINKING”.

Sound advice it seems.

Best of luck whichever way you decide to jump.

Phill

I think alot of people are relying on ebay too much. There are other avenues to make money online and ebay is just one of them. Its time to think outside the box.

I just did some digging on my hard drive and found a script to set up and run and auction style site. It looks like it may need some work for payment processing, but if anybody is interested in taking a look drop me a note at admin@organizationaltool.com and we can take a look at it.
Mark

I have had a quick glance through these comments and to all those worrying about shipping CDs and to the firstcommneter in Australia who said he might as well give up, PLEASE remember – NEVER GIVE UP.

My Mum who passed away when I was 16 taught me “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – she didn’t teach me through words but through actions, she lived what she believed in.

I have been an eBay PowerSeller for 6 years and have thought of a way around all of this. Seemingly, we would not be breaking any rules if we were to sell the digital items as a CD ****BUT**** give the buyer the choice to get the item from our own websites rather than wait for it in the post So. You sell a Learn French Course usually in ebook format. Youlist it as “Learn To Speak French Course on CD-Rom” – you put the shipping costs as Free (local pick-up) or, say, $1.50 to send. You put in the advert that the local pick-up gives the buyer the option to go directly to your site and get the product from there. Your site has a members only area for the item (an example – I sell iPhone unlocking right now, an example of this is http://cybamart.com/aipunl – upon signing in they get the software and I benefit from Adsense etc :-)). They can,of course,choose the CD but few will and most will go to your site,providing traffic and extra sales.

I design and build sites, my own is http://cybamart.com and I can build one for you, too, all singing, all dancing with your own incorporated auction section with feedback facility and PayPal cart, just like the real thing. Please see http://cybamart.com/cybasites for what I offer, contact me at admin@cybamart.com if you would like me to buildyou one, I’ll also accept offers and put the site on eBay so you know it is secure.

Please, PLEASE, never give up. Who are eBay? They are ONE site who do not listen nor seemingly care about sellers’ wishes (just look at how you can see only negatives by clicking the hyperlink in their new feedback pages – how many sellers protested against that unfair move, yet it was still done?) Get your own site, I’ll make it for you and design logos and give you everything you could possibly want with it. I just genuinely don’t want anyone to feel as though they have been made redundant over this – think outside of the box. eBay are nothing but one site. In the past week alone http://cybamart.com has jumped over 2,000,000 places in Alexa rankings – it has been live properly for just 3 weeks. Don’t let eBay rule you and don’t give up. I can feel Mum smiling as I tell others “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – I just hope you will live by the same rule and never give in.

I don’t know too much about the classified section of eBay… so I can’t say yay or nay either way. I also am used to changes happening in life and in business… especially when it comes to eBay. So I’m not totally surprised that ebay would make SOME kind of change. That’s just what they do!

I’ve been listening to eBay Radio, and how their “rep”, Griff, seems to defend eBay and why they are making all of these recent changes. It appears that they are more concerned about the buyers than they are the sellers. In summary they feel that if the seller would “do the right thing” in all of their business transactions… then they don’t believe that any of these changes will hurt. They feel that it can only get better.

Now I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with their logic.. but I do have one point…

If they are truly thinking of the customer first… then I think they dropped the ball on this one. In every marketing course that I have taken, you have to think of the customer FIRST and what THEY want..NOT what YOU want. Give the customer whay THEY want… and you will get what YOU want.

In most cases, I feel that anyone who decides to buy a digital item… no matter WHAT the digital product is… does so because they can get the item NOW! They don’t have to wait for snail mail. The sales letter has done it’s part… got them excited, ready to buy..only to find out that they now must WAIT for their item to be delivered. The customer must now decide if it is worth the wait. I think most internet users will go look elsewhere… at least I would. Most of the digital products that you find on eBay can be found elsewhere on the internet. (At least the good quality ones) If the price is reasonably close, eBay and it’s seller will lose that business. I just think that eBay really had themselves in mind when this decision was made.

Now having said all of that… I still choose to think positive and accept change. My only question is will I accept to change how I sell on eBay, or how I sell OFF of eBay!

thanks john for your info so quickly today. i’ve got your blog and email on major “alert” status! thanks so much. everybody…hey! stay positive it’ll all work out….. ????? yes!

Can you still list on ebay.co.uk? Surely if this policy does not apply to the UK Ebay, whats to stop everyone listing their items on Ebay.co.uk under information products/everything else and setting up a seperate digital system that uses paypal like my digital despatch to deliver them?

Thats assuming this does not apply to uk!

I have been both a buyer and seller of ebooks on eBay and must say that part of the buying point of view is getting the ebook etc. delivered immediately. I have had to wait for emailed items and didn’t like waiting 24 hours not to mention 3-5 days and that is if it isn’t lost or damaged in the mail.

As far as feedback I notice a lot of people don’t leave it one way or the other.

Ebay owns PayPal so what if they decide the whole Digital product market is full of fraud etc. and decide to only allow their payment services to be used for physical items?

Why make the listing format so user friendly for Digital Delivery and then pull the rug from under everyone’s feet.

Wouldn’t have been easyier to just not allow feedback for non physical items? If your customers were happy chances are they would return.

Thanks John,
Not supprising at all.
I have left Ebay just over a year ago. How often have you asked them to clarify something. Only to get different answers from them. There are also other issius with ebay as well as Paypal which put your security and privacy at risk.
This made me start my own auction site early this year and I am offering it free this year to buyers and sellers.
This is your alternative.

Best Regards
John de Groot
http://ozauctionsonline.com

This change will affect a considerable number of people who put 1c and small value items on eBay and only provide items which in some cases are several years old.

During the coming weeks the experts like Jim and John will identify a way forward that enables everyone who are genuine with their business in maximising the changed requirements.

The larger businesses will have the finance to adopt outsourcing some of the extra activities that will have to be involved in handling CDs and the like.

The smaller businesses (tight financially) will be faced with doing the extra work themselves which will involve either additional hours or a reduced activity.

I look forward to see what comes out over the coming weeks.

This looks like a really good opportunity for someone to set up a digital auction site.

Could be huge…

This is going to be a big blow for people making a full time living with selling ebooks. John said we can still list in UK. The other best option is to use other auction sites.

OK, I saw this early on yesterday when uploading via Turbo Lister, the exact message you get is

– Please note that all listings that contain content that can be digitally downloaded or transferred must be listed in the Classified Ad Format only. As of March 31st, all listings for digital items not in the classified ad format will be considered a policy violation.”

Note the ‘can be’ in the first sentance. Even if you are sending via CD you must be breaking this as it ‘can’ be digitally downloaded or transferred. I’m not saying it is if you offer delivery via CD but it ‘can’ be.

BTW I saw this which is worth mentioning: –

http://kunaki.com

and a great script for it here – http://thediscbuddy.com/wso/

(no aff links)

My take on this is look elsewhere….Internet Marketing is NOT about eBay…it’s about Internet Marketing.

John… I agree 100% with this – Now you may have noticed I have never ever bad mouthed eBay and I have no intentions of starting now.

There is just no point, I would much rather look for the positives that can be taken from this new policy.

Enjoy the change

One other random thought – can you produce an eBook that can ONLY be printed, you could then say delivered to your printer in physical format…..mmmmhhh NOOOOO thats too crazy
_________________
http://servicesforthe.net

In response to my earlier psot about the cost and time involved in producing CDs I have found a great resource that will do all of the hard work for you at a very reasonable price.

Given that many people here seem interested in going this route, I’ve put together a couple of Camtasia videos which walk you through the whole process. You can view them at my blog here:

http://daveovenden.com

Please note – no affilate links – this is just useful information (I hope) and nothing more.

Let me know what you think!

Regards
Dave Ovenden
DaveOvenden.com

As eBays arcane rules and regulations make things ever more complicated for buyers and sellers alike, isn’t it funny to hear when they do something that actually hurts them, not the sellers?

I think that’s fantastic news for digital goods sellers certainly.

Now all you have to do is run one carefully worded classified ad to get any amount of traffic and email subscribers.

It also means that eBay will lose a small fortune on listing fees.

I think that maybe what they’ve done is add 2 and 2 together and got to 4 without understanding the motivation of many sharp minded ebook sellers.

According to that announcement, eBay are saying they believe that they need to do something about the feedback system being manipulated. Well this move won’t achieve that.

It’s just as easy for anyone to open a hundred dummy eBay accounts and “sell” non-existent physical goods for a dollar to any of the other accounts without going through PayPal.

I’ve seen scammers do this. Hundreds of feedback from clearly made up accounts all owned by the same person.

No. That’s not the reason.

eBay are trying to clean up again.

They did it a couple of years ago with the diet pills et al, stopping certain goods from being listed as a home page item.

They believe that all the ebooks are giving eBay a bad name, and so they’re cleaning up shop without having thought it through.

Because of the high price of listing fees for classified items, they believe that ebook sellers will steer clear of listing in that way.

I predict that the sharper ebook sellers will use classifieds and save money.

And are you ready for a flood of ads for ClickBank products?

How about this?

A classified listing for a quit smoking report for free. Just enter your name and email address to get your special report. Don’t forget to confirm.

Once you’ve subscribed, you get your report which has affiliate links inside it, and then each day for the next week you get information on various ClickBank promoted products in the form of a review.

After the first week, you get another product each week related to quitting smoking, again in the form of a review. They’re all set up as autoresponder messages.

If one classified listing generates 100 leads, you’re going to get at least one sale for something sooner or later, and your listing fee is paid for.

Even if it only generates 10 leads, you’re still going to get a sale eventually.

As soon as all those ebooks disappear, the smart eBay marketer is in the money.

Is it just me or is every one missing the point.

EBAY HAS BANNED DIGITAL PRODUCTS. not just ebooks but the wole shabam we dont yet know if that includes c.d’s or not. and if not, that it wont in the near future. They are doing this to stop feedback being aquired on the cheap.
I am sorry to rain on all your parades but ebay dont want it.

You may come up with other ideas about sending out c.ds or redirecting to the classified adds or what ever.. ok… thats fine.
But the same thing will happen all over again. Ebooks will become the cheapest product on ebay, and people will still buy them to aquire feed back and ebay will take steps. you are fighting a loosing battle people.
My advise, learn another way other than ebay beacause ebay dont want you and if you find a “loophole” way to sell, ebay will just go right ahead and close it, weather you like it or not.

I don’t understand all the griping. This is a GOOD change. For one thing, it doesn’t ban digital products from Ebay; it simply funnels them through the classified ad channel. Classified ads are BETTER. For $9.95/mo you can sell unlimited products. There are no listing or final fees or rules about what you can link to in the auction. You can do a ton more in a classified ad, and you still get all the Ebay search traffic. And you don’t have to worry about a few bad apples ruining your feedback/reputation. If you can’t sell enough product to justify a $10 ad then you are doing something wrong.

Also, this will get rid of all those junk penny ebooks, as well as all those people who lowball resale rights products.

Most of the time, the auction format really doesn’t make sense for digital products anyway. Who is going to wait a week to find out if they won a $5 item that they want delivered instantly?

Forget trying to turn these into physical products. That only makes sense for expensive/large products. For cheap/small products, you don’t want to give up the convenience of digital delivery. Just get to love classified ads. You’ll find they offer great advantages if you open your mind a bit!

-Gene
Great deals on last minute auctions
http://www.toplinetraders.com

Andi, eBay has NOT banned digital products. They are merely banning the selling of digital products as downloadable products to ‘remove feedback manipulation’, i.e. buying an ebook for 1 cent to get positive feedback.

There will be fewer people willing to spend several dollars to acquire an ebook on CD just to get positive feedback.

When you buy from a classified ad, you are not buying through eBay. Hence, buyer and seller are unable to leave feedback for each other. So you can still sell cheap ebooks to benefit from backend products, if that’s what you want to do, but you won’t benefit from the feedback system.

Nick

There is an alternative. BooCooBay.com allows you to sell digital goods, redirect buyers to a web page of your choice, uses Paypal, and doesn’t charge a dime.

The site is only a few weeks old, is a bit raw but has huge potential.

Matthew
http://www.BooCooBay.com

Every solution I’ve heard here WILL NOT WORK!!!!

Have you ever done a search on eBay for something like… say “Turkey Websites”?

Your result would be 20 to 30 pages of results.

Classifieds cost 10 bucks each. So go ahead and pay the ten bucks so you can then show up on page 28 of the search results.

Those of you here whom know SEO, will understand. You listing will more than likely NEVER be seen.

I list my items for sell EVERY 2 to 3 hours. Any time you search for one of my keywords, I am on the FIRST page, multiple times.

Forget classifieds, except for anything other than list building. There IS NO MONEY THERE.

eBay knows very well what they are doing and their reasoning has NOTHING to do with feedback.

I sell turnkey websites and wholesale directories that I AM THE AUTHOR of. And I have done quite well with it, to the tune of 5 grand a month.

That’s all OVER now. There is NO saving it.

To the unemployment line for me I guess.

JD

Hello again, John,

I think Socrates Socratous has slightly missed the point when he says that marketers can still automate their businesses when offering products using eBay’s classified advertisements. The classified advertising system is irrelevant here.

Reading between the lines, it seems you’re saying that business transactions can’t be automated when offering physical products via the normal auction/buy now process that has been used up to now, and which eBay is disqualifying as of the end of this month.

As I suggested in my lengthy post earlier today, a firm that burns, prints and posts out digital products to marketers’ customers can relieve the seller of the drudgery of physically packaging and shipping to customers.

Well, what do you call this process, where an order is received by a ‘fulfilment house’ from a customer, which it then prepares and sends out to that customer’s customer? That’s dropshipping isn’t it, a process operated by many powersellers. And how do the dropshippers receive their instructions and payment? Over the internet, of course!

The company that will do this for electronic products is already operating in the US, and, as I said earlier, I don’t think it will be long before dropshippers of this kind are offering this service throughout Europe and possibly worldwide.

Realistically, is there a discernable difference between electronic ordering and electronic delivery? Handled correctly by marketers, the new ruling by eBay probably won’t make a jot of difference in the end. In other words, eBay wants things to look right…yes, it’s just cosmetic!

THE INTERNAL WORKINGS OF eBAY’S USERS’ BUSINESSES ARE NONE OF ITS CONCERN AND eBAY KNOWS IT. BUT THOSE WORKINGS MUST BE INVISIBLE.

And my earlier remarks on the option of using the shipping and handling charge as a discount on (that is, part payment for) an upsell still apply.

If only the other posters here could see that the new situation improves upon the present arrangement due to end after March 31.
This is an opportunity to be exploited. The king is dead… long live the king!

Best wishes,

Anthony Harris

Does this include eBay.Co.UK or just eBay.USA – I can’t find anything about it on the discussion boards (mind you I never can, don’t have time to use them often enough to figure them out) and there’s been no alerts, does this mean it’s coming soon to us?

All the best.

I am not a powerseller and have only sold a few ebooks on eBay. But like most of the people here I see this as a way to keep the little
seller down. But in order to survive we need to have dfferent places to sell.

Here is a site that will show the way to use classifieds. It is from a powerseller on ebay and he talked about this before the Ebay Slap. This is not an affilliate link just some good information on classified ads.

Digital items were not previously restricted with buy it now. You could list an auction and the buyer would pay at the end of the listing and still receiving a digital delivery.

I do believe that some people were abusing the system by getting their power seller status by selling .01-.99c e-books and then selling high priced items without delivering them. There must have been many abusing the system. I also think that some CD’s will sell well (if they are not also banned), but on the other hand a report will be more hassle than it is worth and not many will want to pay shipping cost. As was already stated, when you want the information for research you want it now, not a week or two from now.

I just did a Google search on other auction sites and here are the links to a few list of auction sites:

http://auctions.nettop20.com/
http://online-auction-sites.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.100auctionsites.com/

Other auction sites may be the ticket for a while.

Thank you John,

I wiped my eyes a few times after I received this news and just couldn’t believe it. I have been told a few times to create other accounts in the past but I just haven’t found the urge to do so, and I have only just relied on my one eBay account selling only digital items. I have concentrated on building niche websites and made more money there but usually when business is slow I resort back to my ebay business, but this new change will shake things up for me big time.

I do want to say I agree with a few folks here who see a lot of the good side to all of this. A lot of times when we are so used to doing one thing or let’s say using one method like Pay Per Click for instance, it’s often hard to adapt to something new.

This may actually benefit a lot of sharp, smart marketers who jump on this new change and start revamping their eBay store and their marketing. I do not plan on focusing only on selling through ebay’s classified ad section, but I’ll be on the lookout for new ideas, and techniques others are using effectively to combat this new policy.

This could be a good change for the better people and also a very valuable lesson for all of us all too.

Hi John and every one else too –

I this a good thing. I don’t think so but what do I know. Many people are saying what a opportunity this is and only time will tell. Optimism is nice but it can bite you in the ***.

I personally like to buy digital downloads. I have also spent many hours preparing to sell on ebay. The don’t deserve the capital “B”.

What really has me upset is the short notice. It’s posted on March 24 and basically is immediately in effect. Nothing allowed past the 31st if it’s already there. Does the abruptness of this seem unreasonable. If this is do with integrity what happened to theirs. How do you preserve the integrity of the Feedback system that is a joke to begin with. Mis-use can just as easily happen with cheap physical products.

Maybe the feedback isn’t the problem (both real and perceived) it’s the person addressing the problem (both real and perceived). I just feel this short notice is a little on the hostile side. This might be because of a few bad people (both real and perceived) but there are many good people that are effected. Great PR ebay.

Other auction sites –

http://www.wightauction.co.uk

I just signed up there. It’s new but growing. Run by Louise Reilly and her husband is James. He has his finger in it too. You won’t believe you they give you. I’m in the U.S. and I’m going to use it to sell. That’s not a problem. Much is free.

I’m still looking for other auction sites so if you know any…

Thanks – John

Hi John,

Thanks to inform about ebay policy. Now should be our business affected little bit in India

Amit Chivilkar
Mumbai, India
http://www.justmoneymaking.info

surprisingly receive your email about digital products have been banned.

Is this “pushing the envelope” ??? – “Simply list your item however you would normally list it, as either online auction, fixed price or store inventory. Do not list it as a digital item, but DO SAY in the listing that it is a digitally delivered item that will NOT be sent in the mail, but available for immediate download once the buyer receives the download address. Tell them that they will receive the download address within 24 hours after their purchase. Email them the download address as soon as you get notification of a sale from Ebay.” (from someone’s blog post).

Hello all,
I’m a positive thinker, but I’m not naive.
I never sell anything on ebay, I only purchase ebooks about things that interest me.
When I look at my ebay account, I see I purchased 63 ebooks during the last 3 months. Why? Because they were cheap and I was able to download them immediately.
I will certainly not purchase ebooks when I have to pay shipping costs and if I have to wait 2 or 3 days to receive them. In that case, I go to the book shop and I purchase a real book like in times ebooks did not exist.

Thank you ebay to bring us back to the middle ages.

BUY IT NOW items not below $0.01 dollars are not being blocked also …. up to now

I’ve been offline for a few days so missed the beginning of this.

I’m sorry for everyone who has put a lot of time into their ebook business, but there are loads a good ideas in this thread

This looks like a great opportunity for those of use who take the right action.

My mail order company which does drop shipping services and the addition of a printing & stationery company that I’m about to take over should do well from this.

Greetings;

I think it’s interesting that everyone complains, but does nothing about this. Are you sure eBay has the right to do this? Yeah, they own it, but for years and years, people have been establishing businesses on eBay selling nothing but digital items. It seems that eBay has left itself open to a whole lot of law suits. It seems that when you are in something that long, you have certain inherent rights, maybe even a sort of easement or property rights. I think a lawyer should look into this, or maybe eBay thinks that people around the world are a bunch of weak lilly livered liberals!
I think we should fight back.
Jim

I’m wondering if Jim hasn’t right: for years ebay encouraged sellers to build a business selling digital products. Ebay even provided a way to deliver these products instantly after payment.
Now, at once, ebay takes their income away.
I wonder what a lawyer would say about claiming damages from ebay?

Hello again,
I’m not living in the USA, so for me it’s difficult to gather information about this subject. I know something about the legislation in my country.
In my country it’s possible to consult a lawyer a first time without starting a case for free (to get legal information).
The facts: in the past eBay encouraged a lot of people to build a home business selling digital goods and provided these sellers with a tool to deliver these digital products instantly (this could be a very important fact as it clearly proves the cooperation between ebay and the seller of digital products).
To be able to build a home business, selling digital products, the seller had to make important investments: he had to create the digital products or had to buy them with resell rights, he had to invest in automating his business, …
Anyway, the seller succeeded to build a business the way eBay wanted: there are evidences, eBay honoured the sellers of digital products with certificates, a “powerseller” status and maybe more.
Now from one day to another, without any abuse, this seller is obliged to close his business, he looses his income. In fact, even if there is no physical contract, there is an agreement and there is certainly a breach of contract from the site of eBay!
I’m sure, in my country, a company who deals with its members this way, has to pay large damages.
How is this in the USA? I regret I used eBay only to purchase ebooks and I did not sell them, I would certainly start a case against them (… and win!)

I have another view on this huge eBay change. I have posted my thoughts on my blog.

1. eBay’s Communication Method is Horrible

2. eBay’s Reasoning Behind the Change is Bogus

3. eBay’s Disregard for Their Sellers is Appalling

4. The Cost to eBay Could Hurt Them

5. Are Ways Around the Change Valid?

6. Using eBay Classifieds Could Be a Good Thing

7. How Will You Use Classifieds?

http://ecompeak.com/blog

Mike

FREE AUCTION LISTINGS, NO FINAL FEES! Digital items NOT banned as of this moment. Looks good to me, check it out at http://www.stormpay.com/

Be sure you are a member (FREE) to get the benefits, and that you sign up for the AUCTIONS!

I think this is great news, finally the value will come back to digital products. I’ve discovered a couple of the options available for us sellers to turn our digital items into physical items without much trouble at all.
http://miltski.com/blog/the-answer-to-ebays-sudden-ban-on-the-selling-of-digital-items/

Hello John,

My guess is that the US government required this course of action in a bid to reduce the ease with which global terrorists are able to acquire information.

As a consequence we have to find other income streams, such is the world.

Well done on alerting us all.

Keep up the good work

John

John My Friend,

Once more you have proved to the World…….!

That you can indeed, Take a mess of Lemons and Turn them into Lemonade!

The ban is not the end of the world…..it will just make some of us get off our lazy Butts and do a little work. 😉

So lets all dry our eyes and get with it! Adapt and Overcome!

Thanks for your Post John,

Al (PaPaGrizz) Nelson

The ultimate ebay swan song. You paid ebay in good faith like you have the last few years to list all 5,000 30 day DD auctions just a few days ago. Today you are told after march 31st your auctions will be in direct violation of ebay policy and will leave you open to immediate account suspension. Ebay now tells you they will not close those auctions for you automatically on the 31st for a rule they just pulled out of their hat. Ebay now wants you to close all your auctions yourself. The KICKER. If you close the auctions yourself you lose all credit for the listings. Only a lawyer could have thought that one up!!

How about this as an idea.

We sell our digital product in hard form, be it CD/DVD or printed. Then we offer immediate access to it via download.

They are still buying a hard copy and we adhere to eBay, but the customer still gets the benefit of immediate access to their purchase.

Any thoughts?

I’m worried (not) about all the work that poor ebay will have to do to fix their branding… their Adwords ads… and their title tag (at least on ebay.com.au)

“Find almost everything on eBay!”

THE SOLUTION TO THE EBAY DIGITAL PROBLEM… YOUTUBE!

We sell on ebay why? because it has the traffic and traffic = sales! well Youtube has just as much traffic (more in fact, lots more). So learn how to draw the traffic from Youtube insted of eBay, its easier then you would think! Ive been doing this for a while now anyway, and it produces better results then eBay!

3 Ways YouTube Generates You Targeted Traffic!

YouTube doesn’t just give you traffic from its own regular searchers. But, you can get traffic from it in 3 ways. These include:

1. From those searching on YouTube. There are countless hundreds of thousands that come to YouTube on a regular, often daily or weekly basis. They then find your videos by typing-in a search query on the site. For example, if you have a video on “Tatoos,” then when somebody typed in this term, they might find your video. Traffic from YouTube.com starts coming-in within mere hours of submitting your video.

2. Listings from inside Google, Yahoo, and MSN for prized terms. Google loves YouTube videos and often gives them prized search rankings. It’s often far easier to get a listing for a top keyword by submitting a video to YouTube than it is to create a web page on your own new website for that search keyword. The traffic you get from search engines is almost always going to be much higher quality than that from just YouTube.com searchers.

3. Other website owners picking-up your videos for distribution. When you upload a video to YouTube, you have the option of allowing others to put it on their websites or blogs. And this is common! If they do, this can cause an avalanche of targeted traffic. The readers of that blog will view your video, check-out your website, and possibly republish your video if they have a blog or website!

As you can see, YouTube generates traffic from across the web… and by submitting your videos, you can gain a massive amount of exposure to many different audiences.

Its a real simple process when you know how. A very good place to start would be the Tube Mastery system on profiting from YouTube (and other video submission websites), check-out “Tube Mastery” over at:

>>> http://www.TubeMastery.com

Lets move forward!

Jason Shepherd

OK now we’re all over the ‘doom and gloom’ period lets start looking at this objectively. As John said in his original post there ARE more positives than negatives to take out of this. I am actually a little excited by this now

Your upsell and marketing opportunities have just increased significantly. When you send a customer a cd make sure you include further offers, links to your online store (either your Ebay store or own website), bonuses, freebies etc. etc.

I’ve just finished creating an ebook that will teach you how to create a cd that opens and runs automatically when your customer inserts it in their cd/dvd drive. A menu then pops up that gives your customers the options for reading their ebook/installing their software or whatever else they’ve bought. The software used to create this menu is free and details for downloading it are in the ebook.

I’ve also included a letter template that you can use which has the instructions on for your customer. It is in both Word doc and Open Office format. Just edit it with your details, print it out and insert it with the cd/dvd.

You can download them both for free from the link below:

http://www.rlb-publishing.co.uk/cdrun.zip

John, if you can pass this on to all your members I’m sure it will help.

In the meantime if you need cheering up here’s a couple of funnies for you:

The Gullibility Virus
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gullibility.virus.html

New Virus Warning
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/virus-warning.html

Keep your chins up and stay focused and positive.

Warm regards,
Richard

I really appreciate your post. As a DD seller on Ebay I found out about this yesterday and have literally been freaking out. Sometimes it takes someone to point out a positive before you can start thinking positively. Thank you for pulling me out of my pity party!

Hi John

Thanks for the heads up! I just got back from a 6 day workshop and I’m going through a pile of email. I might well have not known this if you hadn’t sent an email. I tend to read your emails pretty quickly, I could leave an email from eBay for a week or so and that would have put me in violation.

I appreciate you looking for the positive in this situation and coming up with solutions.

I have a question about your solution though, I think some others have raised this in the comments as well. But even burning a book onto CD, it’s still a digital product. You need a computer to read it, it’s created from only digital elements, it’s not a physical product. Burned onto a CD it would be transferred to the buyer via a physical medium, but it’s still a digital product you are selling. So wouldn’t that still be in violation of eBay’s new rule?

Thanks,
Donna

Why do I get a feeling that eBay is going to be bought out and that it’s not as hot as it used to be? Just a hunch. I was about ready to sell my MP3 search script there but the idea of paying $9.95 for a 30 day classifieds that my potential customers won’t even browse through, nah…I will go elsewhere too.

http://www.mp3php.com
The FREE Music Search Engine

Like John says,look for the positives.No amount of complaining will change ebay’s policy. It’s time to move on and evolve.
Well done Dave Ovenden for taking action and adapting to the new policy, that is the way I will be going, I’m just tweaking my salespages and about me page and my classified ads will be up early next week.
Colin

Seems not only ebay!! Amazon also disabled the sales of digital delivery items. Ebooks now have to be printed to be sold on Amazon too..

Anyone knows if AMAZON is also located in California?

No more digital delivery items on ebay UK too starting April 29… without a classified ad section… here is the updated policy from ebay UK:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/downloadable.html

I am not sure if you know this… but one of the options to send items on physical CD’s through http://www.SwiftCD.com is NOT valid. They will NOT provide the service for ebay sellers as they told me. Here is a copy of the email i got from them:

Hi Yara,

Yes, we are aware of the ebay situation and are seeing more and more new
customers because of it.

I have spoken with our management and it turns out that due to legal
restraints, we will be unable to provide our services for you and many other
ebay sellers.

I apologize for this inconvenience.

Regards,

Jay Christopher
http://www.SwiftCD.com

Hi:

I’m confused about eBay’s new rule. Maybe someone can sort this out for me.

I’m seeing a lot of digital products for sale now on eBay. These listings were started after April 1. At the top of the listing, the shipping amount says “Free”. At the bottom of the listing, the shipping method says “See Description”. In the description, it says that the buyer will receive an email with a download link for the product. Some say that the email will come immediately. Some say that it will come within 24 hours. Some offer the choice of receiving the download link by email for free or paying a small shipping fee to get the product sent on CD.

Are the listings I’ve described here not in violation of eBay’s new no-digital-download rule? I knew that eBay would no longer be providing the buyer with a download link after purchase, but I thought it was also against the rule for the seller to email the download link. Am I wrong?

If it makes any difference, these were not ebooks. Specifically, I was looking at eBay listing templates and PhotoShop templates (birth announcements where you just add your own picture). Also, these were not 99 cent items. They were at least $5. Most were much more. Is it only the ebooks that can’t now be delivered by digital download? Is it ok to offer other types of digital products by download?

If these listings are in violation of the new rule, why aren’t the being canceled by eBay? Some of them have been running for up to four days.

To get to the point, I’m just asking if it’s ok with eBay to email a product to a buyer (or email a download link).

Anybody know anything about this?

Thanks

I think people are now seeing it is more trouble to list or to even fool with ebay and many sellers will be phased out along with all of these ebook plans where someone can make “millions”. LOL
I had a wholesale list featured in the classified section of ebay informational products and ebay pulled the listing because it has the word “Plasma” in the title. A plasma television is not a brand but a descriptive term. I decided to not have anything to do with ebay anymore. It is so not worth the trouble, and the world wide web is much larger than ebay and will exist much longer than ebay will. I know it is has been mentioned to not badmouth ebay but after the things they have implemented and set in place, what good can you say about them ? I am one that sold MANY informational item. I paid them upwards $1500 us dollars many months for listing fees and final value fees and what do they do but wipe their arzz with it.

All they need is a really good competitor to come along that embraces the seller than paranoid about loosing buyers. The paranoia comes from too many people often too fast to complain about the smallest little thing because they (buyers) are not having a good day or are venting from other frustrations in their lives. Sellers make it happen for buyers, and buyers keep the sellers in business.

I am done with ebay. I will only use them for the specialty tangible item that I run across from time to time

Best of luck to all digital download sellers.

After eBay’s “Workshop” the other day some things are now more clear. In classifieds, the ONLY way a prospect can respond is by sending the seller an e-mail or making a telephone call. No links to your web page, no opt-in form, mo PayPal button.

What I don’t get is they expect us to sell digital downloadable items through classified ads, but they allow no way for the buyer to make a purchase easily — only by e-mail or phone call for more information.

That effectively kills sales of impulse items. i don’t see how classified ads will be any good for us.

What is your take on this?
Steve

Just forget eBay. Not much point in kidding yourself they will come to their senses. They own eBay, they set the rules. Nothing wrong with that. So it leaves us with no platform to sell our goods. Well that is how it was when I started.

If you want to make your living now in the net then do some work, build a site and market it. This will give you a much better living than eBay ever did.

I had a good living from this method 8 years ago. I then started selling on eBay at very good prices, then after some years the prices dropped and I was in trouble. So I rebuilt my websites and soon got back to better times.

This is not difficult to do. Just takes some hard work. If you would like some help to do this just contact me and I will help.

http://ecom100it.com

eBay isn’t the only online auction site and I think people are awaking to that fact