Please note this is a rushed post as I felt you needed to know of this new eBay policy ASAP. Therefore I will be providing more information as the week goes on…
I woke up this morning to find a ton of emails in my inbox plus my members only forum regarding this new policy.
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416
There is also a ton of activity on eBay’s discussion boards.
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000671814&start=0
So as of 31st March 2008 anyone selling digital items will be in violation of eBay’s policies.
Now this does not only affect eBook sellers. This affects anyone selling items delivered digitally.
This can include:
- eBooks
- Audio/mp3
- Digital Videos
- Websites
- Domain Names
- Graphic Design Services
- Photo Services
- And any other service delivered electronically.
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.
And let me tell you the positives actually outweigh the negatives.
There is only one negative issue I can find so far and that is your eBook business can no longer be automated. You will need to make your items physical. And the best way to do this is to burn your eBooks to CD Rom and send it via regular mail. This is not as hard as it sounds once you set up a system to burn and ship CD’s. This task can even be outsourced if you wish.
John… Your joking. I can’t do that…
Oh yes you can, and let me tell you it’s not as bad as it sounds. Let me explain.
By selling physical items you are no longer restricted by eBay’s digital item policy.
For starters you are no longer restricted to the ‘buy now’ option. This means you can list auctions.
You also may be able to list in other categories other than Everything Else > Information Products (I am waiting for a reply from eBay and will confirm this soon)
The up-sell opportunities are truly massive. Remember, you are mailing a physical item to your customers so you have a lot more chance of your further ‘offers’ being viewed. And this is what selling eBooks on eBay is all about.
UK users can list on ebay.co.uk again, no more having to list on ebay.com to avoid the digital item policy.
The chance of selling multiple items will increase dramatically. By offering extra items for no extra shipping means you will sell more. All you have to do is add all purchases to the same CD rom.
Higher perceived value. Because your customer is getting something in the mail you can put your prices up. Just look at the price of any home study course delivered via regular mail.
These are just ideas off the top of my head. I will have more but I felt I needed to get this post ‘out there’ before doom and gloom sets in.
Remember! People who want to succeed will not look at the negatives, they will look for the positives and at the moment I feel the positives far outweigh the negatives.
This is a massive policy change for you and I but we can make this work in our favor.
I expect to make more posts regarding this over the course of the week as I am waiting for a response to a few questions I put to eBay PowerSeller support. Please feel free to share your comments, thoughts, ideas.
240 Comments
Clive Praed
March 25, 2008Hi,
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
Johann
March 25, 2008John,
Thank-you for this
Keep up the GREAT WORK!!!
Regards,
Johann
Aritra
March 25, 2008Oh 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..
Valerie
March 25, 2008John,
Thanks for the post. You’ve made a lot of great suggestions. I knew you’d be right on top of this. Do you know how this affects eBay stores?
Valerie
Julie Sheppard
March 25, 2008Ahh 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
Matt B Carter
March 25, 2008I know for sure that listing items in the classifieds isn’t a good choice, that is for sure.
Here was a twist of your idea, John. Most of us have something like My Digital Dispatch running. We could continue to do so and offer the instant download as a courtesy to our buyers…or something along those lines.
As long as we can get consumers to eat our costs of shipping, I think we can get through this.
At the very least, it opens the door to a while lot of eBooks to be written since a lot of them are outdated in one week. One way to filter out a lot of product that is circulating from non-active sellers. It will also put a final end to a lot of eBook sellers who won’t put in the extra efforts.
So, in that respect, it could open up the market and make it more profitable in the long run….just with more effort on our parts.
I, too, see no point in complaining about eBay policy. It just confuses me why they would do this in such a “hurry” (one week’s notice). When the fees changed in Feb they emailed us about it for a month or more.
I think it wise, to concentrate on getting buyers OFF of eBay instead of whining about eBay.
I wish there were another platform, but lets admit it, there just isn’t.
Nick's Traffic Tricks
March 25, 2008Hey thanks so much for tuning a negative into a positive!
Stuart
March 25, 2008I am still new to web marketing so to keep it as simple as possible,
is there anywhere else we could list and sell like ebay ——-
just wondered!
Ade
March 25, 2008Hi 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
Woody
March 25, 2008Hi John,
Well, I’m still in a daze over this. Am I going to have to give up my eBay Store?
Many Thanks,
Woody
chris
March 25, 2008just 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!
Mark
March 25, 2008John,
Apart from the fact that ALL of your products discuss how to sell digital items on eBay (or at least 95% of them do), you shouldn’t have a problem.
John
March 25, 2008Great! (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.
chris
March 25, 2008Ebay is just full of whammies. Why not just send send the file after the transaction is complete manually. This would work for smaller ebook sellers the larger sellers would be overwhelmed.
Daniel Sumner
March 25, 2008Well 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.
Elaine
March 25, 2008This is a great alternative if your sales are mostly in the US however the majority of my sale are outside of the US.
Beatrice
March 25, 2008John,
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.
Keith
March 25, 2008That was just what I was thinking of doing, John. I have seen a few successful sellers on eBay selling digital items delivered on CD. I suppose it’s worth a shot instead of just giving up.
Maybe you can also post later how to go about putting the files on a cd? That would be helpful.
Thanks for your informative post.
Keith
Keries
March 25, 2008What a great opportnity for some one to open a digital eBay. Maybe call it Digital eBay.
Keries
Jeanette Watts
March 25, 2008Thanks John!
I guess I’m from the “old school” and I prefer a physical item over a digital one. I’ve made copies of cd’s and dvd’s for 2-3 years and the cost of mailing one cd in the United States is $.58 along with the cost of your cd & mailing package will cost you around $.65 total.
But I can’t understand why eBay would do this, especially since there are hundreds or even thousands of digital items listed over the course of a day. With the cost of listing these alone would amount to a large chunk of change. Now I wonder what will be next?
Thanks again! !
Jeanette
DataWorkZ
March 25, 2008Can 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
Derek
March 25, 2008How will this effect MYDD and DLguard. Any ideas
Paul
March 25, 2008Hi John,
Solution is simple
DONT USE EBAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s not the only online auction site.
Paul.
Universal Money Magnet
http://www.unimag.net
John Reed
March 25, 2008Well I never! I’m glad that we’ve got a guide like John because I have just this week begun preparing a site and material to start selling my E-Books from EBay/Web Site. Now I’m completely taken by surprise by this sudden counter-stroke. How did EBay know I was about to succeed at last?????!!!!!
I’ll try to remain positive, whilst secretly performing some mental strangulations!! I currently sell some rather heavy candles on EBay, and from our Shop Web Site, and I was really looking forward to finally using MyDD and NOT having to parcel things up and then try to find a Post Office that is still open (they just closed my local one!).
Such is life – I look forward to further discussion and a rapid adaption to a new formula!!
Thanks John, at least I am aware of it now!
John Reed, York, UK
Keries
March 25, 2008Just 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
Aaron
March 25, 2008Hello
what would you recommend on using paul?
DataWorkZ
March 25, 2008BTW 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
John
March 25, 2008Agree with Paul to an extent. I know eBay is big but no one auction site is as big as the customer base? Surely if all power sellers downed tools for a week eBay may be convinced to change thier (tiny?) minds. With the advances in web technology and everything that the ebooks I’ve bought suggest, I thought that the digital industry was all set to keep expanding big style. I guess eBay do not want to have the global reach anymore. I reckon they are going to lose a huge wad of money on this as newbies and one off digital sellers will not want all the grief that will be associated with CD making etc.
I cannot find a mention of the ban on eBay itself. Where do I need to look for this info? How will it affect listing policies for digital items. Will it just be the delivery or the posting of adverts and auctions?
John
Tina
March 25, 2008It 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
Marc Timberlake
March 25, 2008Well this is just fantastic….
what happens to those of us who mainly sell ebay related tools etc?
Have just read a reply posted by ebay on the ebay.com discussion boards kindly mentioning that UK and Australian ebay sites are to ban digital goods outright… not even giving the classified ad facility.
DataWorkZ
March 25, 2008http://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
Marc Timberlake
March 25, 2008Just a minor thought…..
I wonder if the following could work?
List a classified ad offering all of your digital items, and also list the items individually with shipping on CD etc, but include links such as ‘view other items’ to direct people to purchase the digital download versions via the classified ad…
Food for thought?
MagiesPlace.info
March 25, 2008Hello 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
JoAnn
March 25, 2008Thank you for the update, John. This news is unbelievable! Guess I’ll be re-working “My Plan” today.
Truly,
JoAnn
Randy Smith
March 25, 2008LOL…… 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
Veronica
March 25, 2008John,
I’m devastated! I’m a total newbie, and I am just about ready to go live with my website after following your resale rights blueprint, (it’s taken me 6 weeks with my other commitments). Surely Ebay will be cutting their nose off to spite their face with all the shops and listings that they will lose revenue on, anyway no use crying over spilt milk, I think that Daniel Sumner’s Idea sounds a great way around this problem, but please can you let us have a blueprint to making CD’s asap, and I’ll definately keep watching my inbox for your mail.
Thanks for the info.
Veronica
Geoff Hadley
March 25, 2008Hi 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
Jerry
March 25, 2008I think eBay just shot themselves in the foot. Over the last three years my focus has been to develope automated income streams. I have been driving traffic from my websites to my “Buy it Now” listings on eBay.
Goodbye eBay Hello ClickBank!
Joe
March 25, 2008I 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
REM
March 25, 2008So the great eBay fall out begins. They’ve already upset top sellers who’ve gone elsewhere.
I think that someone in the company saw that ebooks and such delivered electronically was cheapening the system so they have a polite way to get rid of them. Notice that you can post them in the Classifieds section for $9.95 for 30 days. Might as well use craigslist.
eBay is over for me. No interest anymore.
Richard L. Chapman
March 25, 2008Talk 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.
Linda
March 25, 2008As a buyer and a seller it is difficult to see how this is a positive step and i’m a fairly positive individual!
As a buyer, my preference is buying digital eBooks and digital downloads of mp3s. I prefer having something instantly and usable in just a few minutes. I’m definitely less likely to order a CD etc. when I’m looking for instant information and prefer it. That’s what made the option so great. I personally think it is a little backwards in thinking. It’s 2008 and electronic information is the way to go!
In my other job in the Oil and Gas industry, I initiated all the work to be done electronically which has allowed me to work remotely from home, saves 40,000 a year on paper costs and the client receives their report in less time. If I was told electronic items are no longer allowed, we would be out of competition, I’d be back in a negative office, and we would be adding extra costs to the company! Doesn’t that sound backwards??
I will try to see the positive and see how we can move forward but I think maybe eBay’s approach could have been a bit different.
Linda
Lee
March 25, 2008I 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?
Daniel
March 25, 2008Isn’t it about time someone else produced an auction site, so that when ebay closes its doors to digital sellers they can use the new one.
Maybe someone can come up with this.
I’m a programmer and graphic designer and can offer my services for this project if needed.
Any ideas.
Daniel
DK Fynn
March 25, 2008Thanks, John, for being so positive on something so potentially negative.
Don Hutson
March 25, 2008Here is the Announcment Link…
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416
Don
http://www.TeamThrifty.com
Ken
March 25, 2008Unreal. 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
Lee
March 25, 2008Daniel, I agree with you, someone should really come out with an auction site that can take over it lol..
Its because of the 1cent items that others are being punished.. how… lame? lol
When a door closes, another opens?
David Grace
March 25, 2008I 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!
Neil Spruce
March 25, 2008John,
Wondered why my automation rules were failing this morning!
All seems very swift and no nonsense. I have to agree with you though and we must see this as an opportunity to create some upside but feel a busy period of “regrouping” coming on.
Thanks for being on the ball!
Neil
Sharon
March 25, 2008I 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.
Lee
March 25, 2008David Grace, what about people like me who are interested in joining ebay and selling ebooks?
Dave Furnevall
March 25, 2008Seems 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.
Don Hutson
March 25, 2008I have posted my answer to the “rule change” on eBay.
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=1012450968�
Don
http://www.TeamThrifty.com
Lee
March 25, 2008From what i think…
Ebay will be losing their sellers and customers soon… hmm
Vince Andrews
March 25, 2008I have watched the evolution of ebay for many years whilst searching for business opportunities that would make me some small profit to add to a poor wage.
I have also noticed how as it has grown, it has put obstacle after obstacle in the way of the seller. New rules thrown in on a whim, heavy increases in price for sellers etc, etc.
This last one just had to happen eventually. When an industry grows into a power, it is always the users of that service that begin to suffer. Maybe the time is ripe for change but with all of the changes that ebay have implemented so far i can only see difficulty for the ones that are already struggling to make an ebook business work.
It is obvious that the ones that have a thriving business will be able to handle the change and the strugglers that cannot adjust will indeed find it harder to make any income at all. This will then lead to more profits for the thriving businesses and if they were to tell the truth, they will not care one iota about the ones that cannot continue.
The one and only solution that will benefit all ebook and digital sellers alike it for a group of people to come together and implement an auction site dedicated to digital products. Yes i do realize that this would take considerable time and effort for it to get to anything like the recognition of ebay. I do feel that this at least would give all sellers a better chance in this field to succeed.
Will PayPal i ask myself be next to abuse the people that made it what it is today, especially now that it is part of ebay or vice versa throw more spanners in the works as it already has done to the Paid To Click industry. Only time will tell on the whole of this outcome.
Vince
Volker Ritzka
March 25, 2008Create an ebook Marketplace.
Where everyone can buy and sell ebooks.
David Grace
March 25, 2008Classified ads are cheap and easy lead generators. This is a great opportunity and you can create sites easily at a low cost where you can use your classified ad to create a list and then point people to your site (Here is mine: http://www.grace-sales.com). Be creative, this is a great opportunity!
Don’t let eBay beat your creativity! 😉
Also, a lot of John’s ideas will be transferable, and I bet he is making some adjustments as we speak. Let eBay become what it needs to be and says in the news clip – a lead generator!
Michaela
March 25, 2008Hello! 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
Frans Van Wyk
March 25, 2008Well, there goes my life. I sell only digital products, and eBay was the best place to do it. I live and work in South Africa, so sending a physical book or even a CD to other countries won’t be an option. With the Rand/Dollar exchange rate as it is and with our expensive postal rates it will eat up all my profits, or at least make the product too expensive. No buyers, no profits = no income.
If eBay callously cut the throats of all the legitimate sellers to get rid of a few scammers the problem is in their way of thinking and their system. Who’s going to go at the next problem?
Frans
carolyn
March 25, 2008This 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!
Mark
March 25, 2008Here might be an alternative. I can across this site when I was browsing thru one of the giveaways. It’s called Bidszilla. They currently charge no listing fees and a very small final value fee. There are not many listing of digital items there so I listed one to give it a try. They offer different types of stores ranging from free to premium and from just looking around the site it looks like they are open to suggestions as to other catagories. Maybe if a bunch of us start using this it will become the next “eBay” Just a thought.
Dave Lovelace
March 25, 2008— 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
John
March 25, 2008I can understand ebay have a problem. It has been far too easy for a fraudster to buy a heap of 99p, or less, ebooks and build up excellent feedback records in no time at all and then go scamming people before they disappear again. Something needed to be done.
The option Ebay have chosen seems daft though. In the age of digital information they are effectively putting the block on it.
I see their wording is “all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically” so CDs should be ok to sell.
It may mean that the totally hands off method of selling will end and there will be a few trips to the post office required but profit margins will increase though numbers of sales are bound to drop.
Charge more for the product and then add a little bit more for P&P. It might work very well for those who can get their systems in place to run their businesses like this.
I do wonder how many ebay sellers have had heart attacks this morning. It must have been a terrible blow to a many, many people and there must be quite a few ebay selling guides that are instantly out of date after this sudden change.
The bottom line is that this is what happens when you run a business. Things change, customers go elsewhere. It’s adapt or die folks.
John
Valda
March 25, 2008Well 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
ebook-bliss
March 25, 2008Bugger!
There are alternatives to eBay!?
I presume that MyDD works outside of eBay as it relies on the PayPal return (I guess SMARTDD and DelGuard do the smae). As long as the title exactly matches the paypal button etc then I see no problem with using a classified add as a pure lead generator. You could do a lot worse than $9 odd/month to promote a site. The problem is going to be for those that need to build a list (like me!). Those that have a list already will do okay as they generate mucho leads through the list.
It would be great to think that likeminded people (us!) could get together and create a new social/info product site, each building each others list. Sales could eventually (?) be taken off eBay completely(?).
Whaddya thunk!
john (a complete noob)
ebook-bliss.com
Kevin Riley
March 25, 2008John
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.
Melody
March 25, 2008This will be interesting for those of us selling websites – I have sold several that would never have fit on a single CD – and I usually sell them as a package – on their own account and the new buyer just takes over the whole package, and I transfer the domain name to them.
Open to all ideas!!
melody
Omar Martin
March 25, 2008I 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.
Bonnie
March 25, 2008Greetings John,
Thank you for the information!
While it may seem as if the bottom dropped out for some of you, this REALLY is a good thing when you consider the fact that it means you can raise your perceived value (and therefore increase your prices). Now…you can deliver the ordered product on the CD but also include more freebies on it that help “spread the word” about other products you carry!
The possibilities are endless if you get super creative!
Imagine, on a CD you can deliver the original item purchased, plus:
1. A digital catalog of ALL your products and/or services.
2. A slide show of your most popular items.
3. Audio and video salesletters to guide users to other websites you own.
4. “Triggered events” using iframes and audio.
5. Previews of any workshops or teleseminar products.
6. Your digital business card.
7. Trial versions of other products you want to sell.
8. Your printable “order form” they can print, fill in, and mail to you!
… and so on.
Sure, some of you are worried about the “shopping costs” that are involved in shipping the one item ordered but you’re not thinking outside the box here. The fact is, you can NOW deliver much more to these same customers — by delivering it on a CD ROM and actually SAVE money on the shipping cost that it would take to deliver them individually.
IMO — take it for what it’s worth.
All good things,
Bonnie
Todd Moss
March 25, 2008Hi 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
Avril Harper
March 25, 2008Thanks John for that timely information. I don’t actually sell digital download items on eBay but I do sell eBooks on eBay and deliver them on CD and I also use their Classifed Ads to grow my mailing list for eBook sales outside of eBay.
I read with great interest your comments about placing products on CD. I also agree this is the way to go, I used to sell quite a lot on CD a few years ago and then just stopped when I restarted selling collectibles.
I have however produced a short report your readers might like about selling ClickBank products via eBay Classified Ads which more or less works just as well for other eBooks. The report was almost finished until this announcement came from you about eBay banning digital download products from their auction listings but still allowing them in Classified Ads. So I’ve decided to add a bit more to the report and cover more than just ClickBank products. If any of your readers would like a free copy, it will be ready in a few days, then all they have to do is email me – ah@meanderpress.com and I will send the download details when it is ready. They’ll forgive me I hope if I don’t reply to their emails until the report is ready as I want to bash on and finish it fast.
I know most people, including myself, are very grateful to you John for this timely information. Thanks so much.
Avril
ebook-bliss
March 25, 2008Agree 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!
Daniel
March 25, 2008This is no surprise to me. I am just starting out selling eBooks, eBay has been having some problems with this digital products for some time now. There is still Amazon, and Yahoo stores. (right Now) and you can still sell off your own website. It doesn’t cost that much to ship a CD, We may have to increase or book price a little to help offset this, but I am willing to bet Yahoo, Google, or someone is not going to let this source of income die!
Another thing, do you think the top power sellers are just going to roll over concerning their lively hood??
Free Wordpress Videos + MRR + Website
March 25, 2008Hi 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
Alex Taddeo
March 25, 2008John I had similar thoughts on burning to cds… in fact I have a video game/video rental store, and have actually sold a few cheat guide ebooks to my “physical” customers. They give me a buck or two and I burn them a cd to take home. I spoke with a guy from ebay on the phone who suggests not using the minimum price of $1 and maybe go to $2 or more for each… this will probably lower sales in volume but may raise it in dollars, and will definately improve the quality of products circulating.
Here is an important piece I want everyone to know. I have two ebay accounts one is all ebooks of course the other is all media (video games, dvds, cds, books, ebooks). The media account is 8 years old, 4008 feedback, 4 negatives… not bad. This account was almost suspended with no questions asked just for selling ebooks, as if you sell them with other physical products they consider it “Feedback Manipulation”. People have been adding ebooks just to boost their DSRs. Most sellers have problems keeping the s&h charges and times categories high, and use ebooks to improve their score so they can over charge shipping on other items. If not for my powerseller account manager saving my account I’d be completely out of work… just for selling ebooks on the side.
Carson
March 25, 2008It’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.
Alex Taddeo
March 25, 2008Nick, the guy from ebay that called me says the big wigs at ebay are concerned with people using ebooks to boost their DSRs and that way they would get the powerseller discounts of 5% – 15% when they don’t deserve it. They only did this because their last policy change regarding feedback and fees is flawed, and this is how they cover their asses… they basically told me this on the phone, and that is why they almost suspended my account… Even though I do $10,000+ each month is sales of all types of products, all they cared about was their money and making their new policies work.
Anyone selling physical products and ebooks together as I was, should stop ASAP before you loose your other business right along with it.
Alex
Martin Schmalenbach
March 25, 2008Hi 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
hans
March 25, 2008Hi john,
This puts a cat amongst the pigeons.
I have a suggestion.
You know plenty about the ebook market. Start another one, on the
pattern of ebay, just named differntly.
Must be worth getting in a good techie to do the soft ware.
come on john I’m yours forever!
Trevor Webster
March 25, 2008John,
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
Alex Taddeo
March 25, 2008Melody, from way above… if your websites are too big for cd, then what you can do is have the cd include just a download page link. Instruct your buyer to cut and paste the link the same as you would with an auto-email delivery. That would take up no space and then you could sell anything really.
P.S. I was thinking of doing this for all of them so that I can still generate traffic… post a reply or email alamundo@aol.com if you have an opinion on having the cd redirect to a download page to generate traffic.
Alex
Liz
March 25, 2008Looks 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.
Jo
March 25, 2008Let’s stop offering our digital articles on ebay for a while. We can hit them at the only place where they are sensitive: their wallet!
hans
March 25, 2008Question.
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!
Alex Taddeo
March 25, 2008Ok here is another since I can’t stop thinking about this… What if we listed the items as CDs, but still have Outlook Express (that’s still what I use, not sure how mydd works), send the instant link. We would of course still have to send the cd, but could still provide instant access… “with more content and bonuses to come with the cd. Anyone have thoughts on that or know if it would be legal or not?
matt
March 25, 2008Maybe ebay have bought shares in companies that make blank cd’s!
Karen
March 25, 2008Hi John
Can we still offer free eBooks for digital download when they visit our store or auction on eBay or join up to a receive our newsletter or is this banned?
Thanks
Karen
Taylor Nursing Scrubs
March 25, 2008I 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 !!!
Anthony Harris
March 25, 2008Hello John,
What you say about the positive aspects of eBay’s announcement are quite correct. Not only is it possible to ship physical products easily within the UK, but there’s a company in the US that burns, prints and ships CDs and DVDs, presumably anywhere. More importantly, it allows customers in the US and Canada to have physical digital products shipped at local rates.
I’ll bet there’s a similar service available, or likely to become available in other parts of the English-speaking world. Bearing in mind that eBay operates world-wide and presumably in other languages, you can expect the service to become available on a global basis, possibly in countries where postal and packaging charges could be perceived as low by western standards.
Marketers in India and South East Asia won’t be slow to see the advantages, although there used to be a high rate of theft within some of their postal systems. Whether things have changed for the better remains to be seen.
For my part, I don’t think sellers are disadvantaged by eBay’s decision, and in any case, buyers can still be referred to the sellers’ websites following, and possibly during the inital sales process for further promotions…upsells, OTOs and so on.
eBay clearly feel that digital sales as currently conducted don’t form a particularly significant chunk of their global business, much of which can be recovered via listing and sales fees for the physically rendered digital products.
And there might still be scope for customers to receive a digital download anyway: many ebooks, for example, are listed at very low prices on the front end and sold via the ‘buy now’ option. This scope arises because of another announcement by eBay intended to deter unscrupulous sellers from overcharging for shipping. Sellers whose shipping charges are noticeably higher than those of other sellers for similar items could have their auction delisted or given less exposure.
So a reasonably low shipping cost for the buyer would meet eBay’s requirements, and could be an acceptable amount for the buyer to pay for the service of having their purchases delivered over the web. The cost to the buyer could then be offset as a discount on their next purchase. That introduces a new incentive later in the process. Just imagine…the OTO already part-paid.
And so far as eBay is concerned, the seller’s charging for shipping and handling, follows the auctioneer’s rules; and the buyers – it is to be hoped – love the sellers (their service, anyway) and leave plenty of positive feedback. Happiness reigns and pots of gold are once again found at the end of rainbows.
Phew!! Got all that off my chest…and don’t be surprised if this turns up on the web as a short report. Well, you heard it here first, straight from the horse’s mouth. Now where are those sugarlumps…..?
Best wishes to all,
Anthony Harris
Kevin
March 25, 2008I 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
Jo
March 25, 2008With ervery CD you send, ebay will cash Paypal fees on your shipping costs
Liz
March 25, 2008Been 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!
Valda
March 25, 2008Sorry John, now that I have calmed down lol, can you tell us if this affects eBay worldwide or is it eBay.com.
Why I ask is if it is just eBay.com can for example those in the UK list as normal and use thier digital delivery systems to deliver eBooks and other digi products?
I think some of the major power sellers of eBooks should really look into starting up a site (like eBay) but for all digi products. The main policy being setting a “price cap” so people won’t be seen as feedback soliciting. This I think is what has caused this whole banning thing in the first place.
Charles
March 25, 2008Okay, 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
zowoco
March 25, 2008So why do you not simply sell a physical product such as a dog-collar and send a flyer for your ebook “how to fit your dog-collar” or “dog-training for morons” to your purchaser? Highlight how much they will benefit from reading your ebook now they have bought your physical product.
That’s how to benefit using eBay, but in any case you need to concentrate on selling ebooks from your own website and using traditional traffic-generation systems to market your ebooks. Microsoft doesn’t promo through eBay yet they do all right! So can you.
biffula
March 25, 2008P!$$ on Ebay. Start using Ebid.net
Tom Parker
March 25, 2008I agree this is not the best news for eBay ebook sellers. I myself had just had graphics done for a product related to selling ebooks on eBay but now this product is pretty much unsellable because of these changes. However, in my opinion the eBay ebook market has been increasingly difficult for some time now. Because of this I started setting up a website, newsletter, blog combo back in October 2007 which focussed on a totally different niche and didn’t rely on eBay. Although it is by no means a full time source of income it’s left me prepared for something like this announcement so I can now focus more of my time on this other niche.
My advice would be to do the same, even if you are planning to adapt and continue selling digital products on CD. By relying on eBay for all your income your leaving yourself at their mercy. They could introduce a rule next month saying no self-created CDs and DVDs can be sold on their website. Then what would you do? By all means adapt and continue to sell your ebooks but don’t focus all your efforts on this. Try setting up another blog, website or newsletter with related products or affiliate products that would not be affected should eBay suddenly make that side of your business obsolete. With outsourcing and PLR now available at reasonable prices their’s no better time to try your hand at creating a niche website, blog, newsletter or product.
Rob Lee
March 25, 2008Let’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
Fred Holmes
March 25, 2008There’s probably something along these lines already posted, but I have yet to finish reading all 96 as yet, so if this is a rip-off of someone else’s suggestion, I apologize right now.
If you’re selling to folks in the US and you’re in Southern Australia, India, SriLanka, wherever, you can still have your digital product fulfillment accomplished without OVERSEAS postage, etc.
No one has said that you can’t send your product to a third party (outsource your production/shipping) like http://www.speaker.com, have them burn your CD, print your Book, so on and so forth, fulfill your orders from a US post-office or via UPS/FEDEX/DHL whoever, comply with both the letter and spirit of the restriction and STILL preserve 90 percent of your margin or better.
Mary Ann
March 25, 2008Ebay 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.
Theo
March 25, 2008I notice that a lot of people are not happy with certain websites. I wish to let them in on a secret.
There is a new auction website without any listing fees and no restrictions on items to be listed. The site only charges when a seller makes a sell. Try it free…
http://www.globalbidstore.com/
New Service To Replace eBay?
March 25, 2008There 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
will
March 25, 2008Alot of you have said that ebay is going to lose a lot of money over this and customer respect e.t.c
But really? How much money do you think ebay make, they are not going to be bothered in the least bit about a couple of million dollars.
All they would need to do if they were bothered is add a penny on to there charges for motor vechiles or something.
It would be easily fixable on there side, however for us i believe we should stop looking at the negatives and look at the positives which many have pointed out.
Lets lay some physical ass down on ebay!
The Infotainer
March 25, 2008Hi 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.
Dave Bennett
March 25, 2008Never used the classified ads section, and to be honest, I and (in my opinion) most people never will. The perception of these type of ads…is chancers and crap products.
The option of sending a CD is viable if….
1/ You burn the CDS’s yourself (errr quite time consuming).
2/ You buy in bulk.
3/ You can get somebody to pay the shipping costs.
4/ You live in the USA where most business is.
Cost per CD could be as low as 10c each, and the plastic wallet probably 1c. The package to send (bought bulk)…maybe 20c.
Postage…maybe 50c local or $2 international.
Starting to sound VERY unfeasible.
John, how does this affect your mentorship program? I know it pretty much puts the kibosh on the content of most of the ‘How to ebay’ ebooks I have.
Basically bye bye digital ebooks…hello ….errr something else!
Chris
March 25, 2008Well, 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.
Dave Ovenden
March 25, 2008I’ve read all of the comments above and it’s great to hear that everyone is remaining so positive.
However, I fail to see how switching to delivering products on CD via snail mail is the way forward!
1. It adds cost
2. It’s slow
3. It’s not environmentally friendly
and finally…
4. It requires too much effort for the potential return (burning CDs, packing, posting etc.)
The only upside I can see is that you can retain buyer feedback.
So, for me, the answer lies in developing the classified ads route as a way of growing a list to sell digital items to outside of eBay. This is something that Jim Cockrum has been pushing in his newsletter for some time.
I already have an e-book website and MyDD works just as well outside of eBay as it only relies on the PayPal description. If I can add a customer rating system to my site and write a killer classified ad, I’m away! Any ideas anyone 😉
I also like the idea of setting up a digital product alternative to eBay, although this could take time to grow. I’m sure John will be working on this as we speak though!
This is a big change for everyone selling digital products on eBay but that’s life. The good news is that big changes always bring big opportunities for those who are creative and/or clever enough to grasp them.
I for one intend to move forwards not backwards!
Regards
Dave Ovenden
DaveOvenden.com
Lee Jones
March 25, 2008I 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 !
Chris
March 25, 2008I meant to add that ebay’s stated reason about feedback manipulation is ridiculous- certainly that could be done with cheap physical items as well.
Josh
March 25, 2008John
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
anton
March 25, 2008I was thinking of writing an ebook titled
“How to get round the ban on selling digital products on ebay”
But I’m not sure where to sell it (lol)
Keep smiling folks all is not lost
Roosevelt Cooper
March 25, 2008While 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
DataWorkZ
March 25, 2008Just so you know, I did just now get confirmation that selling an eBook or other product and placing it on CD or DVD and mailing it snail mail is allowed. They are sending me confirmation of our telephone conversation shortly to confirm it in writing.
Keep the ideas coming, remember while the ideas might not help everyone, they might help those who really need some direction, with this new eBay law. All is not lost!
And yeah, why doesn’t someone start a digital item service website? I wouldn’t mind seeing how I can help or be a part of it.
And if this is successful with eBay, how long do you think it will take other websites and companies to follow suit by banning or limiting sales of digital items?? Any research on this?
A lot of great minds here on this blog, let the creativity flow….
Guess I have to start changing my 256 store items fast, so thanks for letting me post…
Kris Williams,
http://www.dataworkz.com
jason
March 25, 2008yeah 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!
Karen Taylor
March 25, 2008I’ve spend months “getting ready” and was just about there! What a blow! This is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Surely this will be refined, but…
Frans Van Wyk
March 25, 2008Just 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.
Joseph Ratliff
March 25, 2008John,
I have honestly always sold my e-books on cd or printed and mailed them as physical booklets. That is sound advice for anyone who needs to “convert” the format.
It is very easy…and doesn’t take that much time or energy if you simply build a little system.
Joseph Ratliff
Author of The Profitable Business Edge 2
Kathlene Amerine
March 25, 2008Whoaa! 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
Cytnthia
March 25, 2008“Remember! People who want to succeed will not look at the negatives, they will look for the positives and at the moment I feel the positives far outweigh the negatives.”
Wrong John. People who want to succeed WILL look at the negatives and improve upon them or work within them, like you did in this post.
As an analyst, I’ll look at the positives and negatives of a business. Then I’ll decide if I can improve upon the negatives. If I can, I buy the business, improve the negatives, and resell at a profit.
This isn’t “make you feel good” business. It’s all about how to fix the negatives.
Wayne
March 25, 2008Hi 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.
Kathy Keefe
March 25, 2008Hey John, Thanks for the quick response to this unfolding drama. I agree with you that there are always positives — when eBay throws lemons – make lemonade! After sleeping on the “news”, this morning I decided that this is really a means to increase targeted traffic to my web store. We can, at this point anyway, still link to websites from our About Me page on eBay but you can only list CDs in your store. Drive more auction visiters to your About Me page, and let them know that they CAN get the same products INSTANTLY DELIVERED from the web store. And we, the store owners, save eBay fees, get more targeted traffic, make more sales, etc, etc etc. How long eBay will allow this is anyone’s guess, but at least for now, it’s time to start “squeezing those lemons” and make something SWEET! (like more money!)
Kathy Keefe
http://www.allinfo24-7.com
Laura Graber
March 25, 2008Wow…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.
Karen
March 25, 2008I agree that we will all be best served by looking at this as an opportunity. I have never used the classifieds before — some of you mention using them to point at your website. I sell to a micro-niche,
(How to earn money at home sewing doll clothes, dolls or children’s outfits) I have tried to keep costs down ($9.95 Free Shipping) as most of my buyers are young mothers at home, retirees or disabled, people looking for an inexpensive way to begin making money.
How does one advertise the classifieds? Do they come up on an ebay search? Anyone who has hints or tips on using and promoting the classifieds, I’d love to hear from you.
Trying to figure out why ebay does what they do is wasted effort in my opinion. We need to figure out the best way to go forward from here and help each other as best we can.
I have been building a small list. I plan to survey my buyers to see how much an additional $5.00 (I’ll eat part of the cost) would affect additional sales of my ebooks and patterns.
So far I have gleaned a lot of good information from these posts and do expect more in the days to come.
karen@bayoudreamer.com
Phill Hopkins
March 25, 2008Here’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
Paul
March 25, 2008Thanks for the Heads up John,
I’m in France and haven’t seen anything about this on ebay.fr so far.
But should it happen, instead of selling a CD, why not sell a link to a downloadable ebook. The link would be snail mailed which would cost just an envelope a stamp and a sheet of paper, instead of having to burn a cd ? (of course the link could also be mailed once the transaction is completed).
Off course Ebay probably won’t like that !!!
Michael
March 25, 2008I 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.
Jimmy
March 25, 2008Look at the bright site, be optimistic, evolve again….
Yaga, yada, yada.
Bull S***
I’m so freaking tired of eBay. I just built my Information business on eBay to about 4k a month.
Just two days ago I signed up for the eBay Stores 30 Day Trial.
Just now canned it. Now as soon as my 287 current listings expire, so will my association with eBay.
They can kiss my a@@.
I’ll go dig ditches before I give them another freaking dime of my money. They are greedy, self serving, I’m in if for me idiots anyway.
95% of my sales are 20 bucks and less. And I list every two hours.
With hard product information products, NOT ENOUGH people will want to pay shipping and wait for a CD to be mailed, to make it worth it. PERIOD !!
eBay knows full well what they are doing. PERIOD!!!!
Mark
March 25, 2008I 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
Peter
March 25, 2008I think most people may have been prepared to part with a couple of dollars for an ebook with instant gratification [via digital download] but I think it may be tough to sell the same product for several times more and have the customer wait several days for it instead!
Stay positive, think logically and solutions and Opportunities will follow.
Peter
http://www.HomeBasedWealth.com.au
Merril
March 25, 2008I 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.
Gerry Griffin
March 25, 2008Well John that was a bombshell, I became a fan of yours and was hoping to earn my 1st commission cheque in the foreseeable future, but back to the drawing board as they say. Your honesty and integrity are what I most admire and I am glad to follow your lead and your usual sound advice. I am such a newbie that this is the first time I have ever participated in a forum, about time I guess. This is not my first venture and I have spent a lot of money in the elusive search for success, but I am getting there and I am much smarter than I was 2 or 3 years ago, wow time flies when you are having fun!. Whatever you decide is the best solution, count me in, and keep up the good work. Cheers…..Gerry
RJ Darden
March 25, 2008I 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!
walters35
March 25, 2008I would be glad to try an help set up a ebook auction site.
Let me now if anyone else is interested in trying.
Leona
March 25, 2008thanks 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!
Tommy McLaughlin
March 25, 2008I can see a lot of different opinions, while I can accept sending a Cd etc, this is going to hit everyone’s profits.
I am working on other things other than my eBay Members Site as this is not the first time eBay has hit me in the pocket.
All eggs in one basket spings to mind.
As to chaning eBays mind … not a chance.
We just got work round this.
Speak soon
Tommy
Nev
March 25, 2008Can 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!
Socrates Socratous
March 25, 2008Hello Everyone,
Socrates here…
It seems that there is some confusion on the blog
and MyDD popped up a few times,
I thought I would post my thoughts
I have to agree with John on the “think positive”
part of the post.
Ebay will do what they think benefits the majority
of their users. In this case they decided to crack
down on the “sneaky” sellers that abuse the feedback
system and YOU as the honest seller, are also affected.
Personally, I see this as a GREAT opportunity for
people that understand marketing to thrive.
It actually reminds me of 5-6 years ago when digital
products were actually selling for real money.
This policy will weed out the people that bring
YOUR prices down to almost nothing.
This is NOT the time to give up.
To the contrary, this is the time to see
the opportunity and take advantage of it.
I have been teaching my students for some
time now, to use ebay as a LEAD GENERATION
system and not necessarily to make profits
from the actual items sold through the auction.
The REAL money is the money you can make from
promoting more expensive and related items to
those leads.
You start by instantly upselling an item immediatly
after the ebay sale, and continue to promote to
that customer all the way down your marketing funnel.
Whoever has been using this approach, will not
be affected by this policy, but benefited.
Ebay saw the lead generation potential of digital
products and acted accordingly asking you to list
them in their Lead Generation format; the Classified Ad.
I have to DISAGREE with John where he said you cannot
Automate Your digital product business.
====You CAN STILL AUTOMATE YOUR BUSINESS! ====
And to those that think MyDD is no longer good,
THINK AGAIN!
MyDD is more necessary NOW than ever.
In fact, now you will be forced to see the REAL
potential of the MyDD system.
Stay with me here and read below.
Digital Sales through classified ads CAN BE AUTOMATED
the same way and never have to manually send out
an email with the download links.
Listing a classified ad may in fact turn out to be
cheaper for you since it runs for 30 days and you
can include links and optin forms on them.
(quick tip: on the thank-you url of your optin form,
you can include the Buy Now LINK created by MyDD,
and as soon as someone opts in, they can be redirected
to payment. you can say something like:
enter your name and email to receive ordering instructions.)
You should still use MyDD to send the product
instantly as an additional free service,
while person is waiting for the CD.
Think about it.
Even though ebay restricts downloadable items now, ebay BUYERS
(that means: YOUR customerS) still expect the
IMMEDIATE download. So, you NEED to offer it to
them IN ADDITION to sending the CD.
You will still have the same advantage over the sellers that just ship.
There is Nothing to prohibit you from mentioning
in your ad that they will be receiving the digital
download as an ADDITIONAL BONUS. DO IT
There wont be any other way for people to instantly
download a product they purchased with Buy NOW,
unless you offer it as a BONUS to your CD.
You can also automate the sending of your CDs.
A few of our MyDD customers use the BCC feature
of the software, to instantly send an email to
a person/company that burns the product on the CD
and sends it out for them.
Remember, the S&H is paid by the customer.
The price of the actual product can remain the same.
ebay prohibits Digitally Delivered PRODUCTS.
However, certain items cannot be sent in any
other way, nor be put on CDs.
For example, selling access to your private site
(which COULD contain the same info as the book)
can offer the same benefits as an ebook
AND CAN be automated. MyDD can be setup to send
a unique username/password for
every customer that purchases an item.
Items in this category.
– Access to your private forum
– Access to your membership site
– Webhosting
– Account on your WEB-BASED software
– Timely delivered newsletter *
None of the above can be put on a CD and
there is NOTHING to download.
MyDD in fact is the ONLY software that can allow
selling of such services.
NOTE: since this is a new rule, this may be a
gray area. Should you decide to list items
in the above categories, I would suggest to
give it a decent price (at least a couple of dollars)
to avoid being flagged by the feedback policy.
in addition, you still NEED to capture all
your customer’s information and organize them
in an easy to use format so that you can run
reports, send emails to all or groups of customers for additional sales.
Instant integration of your autoresponder software
or service is also very important in your business.
If you go the shipping route (and ship CD’s DVDs,
printed material etc) there will not be a connection
between your customer AND your email list.
By using MyDD, your customer is INSTANTLY and
automatically added to your mailing list software
even when you sell physical products.
Do NOT underestimate the power of the INSTANT upsell.
MyDD users report up to 500% increase in their profits
by using INSTANT upsells with their ebay items.
Even though you will be able to include a brochure
with your package (when you ship the physical disk)
NOTHING beats the effectiveness of an IMMEDIATE upsell
that takes place moments after the purchase.
In fact, you SHOULD include a brochure in ADDITION
to the instant upsell with MyDD.
If you have any concerns or comments, please post here
and I will be back to address them.
I was going to include more info here, but the
post got way too long so, I ll wait and post more
later.
Best Regards
-Socrates Socratous
http://www.SocratesBlog.com
Michael Swearngin
March 25, 2008I 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.
morris herman
March 25, 2008108morris108 (36 ) View Listings | Report 25-03-08 20:39 GMT 8 of 8
Digital downloads are great
I know the system is abused, big time
But some of us are genuine
Ebay could distinguish, say, a copyright holder is allowed to. Or nothing below a pound, or any feedback will not go into total score.
What a shame for me!
stores.ebay.co.uk/psychic-development
John de Groot
March 25, 2008Thanks 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
morris herman
March 25, 2008Is doing a Tarot reading by email – also banned?
Derek
March 25, 2008This 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.
Conrad Parvin
March 25, 2008Does anybody have any idea on how this affects marketing Web Hosting?
There is no way that hosting can be delivered on a CD.
Conrad – IntegrityHosting.biz
how to place bet on favorites for a living
March 25, 2008This looks like a really good opportunity for someone to set up a digital auction site.
Could be huge…
Michael
March 25, 2008Wow John! Thanks for sharing this…I’m going to let my list know about this right away. This could blow a big hole through a lot of people’s businesses…I know of a few people who have been doing quite well selling digital items on Ebay…I’ll send them a link to your blog to check it out.
Thanks for the heads up.
Best wishes,
Michael
Harjit Irani
March 25, 2008This 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.
TheAuctionNewbiesClub
March 25, 2008Thanks for the heads up regarding the news from ebay, no more selling digital goods is great news, the best l have had for while, it means that all of the con-men, the and the people who sell ebay short will have to rethink again and will stop selling on ebay and go elswhere.
When one door shuts another opens so some of us can look forward to better profits no the giveaway merchants have been stopped and at least feedback will become more genuine.
Angela
March 25, 2008OK, 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
morris herman
March 25, 2008Brian Burke
Director, Global Feedback Policy
This is the man who made the announcement
What about just making the feedback unavailable to the score value
Wonder what his email address is?
Dave Ovenden
March 25, 2008In 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
Chris, Kent, UK
March 25, 2008Having decided to check out eBay UK, there doesn’t yet appear to be a similar policy being applied here. eBay UK’s current policy regarding digital items is here:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/selling-digital-items.html
and it appears that “Sellers may list items that would otherwise breach this policy where:
the seller is the copyright owner, or
the underlying material is in the public domain”
then you can list it on eBay UK ….. until they copy the USA!
Does this mean that eBay UK will become THE digital auction site for a short while?
Daniel
March 25, 2008As 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.
James Stewart
March 25, 2008Hi John
I’ve read every post and for the most part there are quite a few
positive thinkers with some good alternitives.It is what is a few
have managed to ruin it for the majority and eBay has shut the door on everyone.
The other factor is that eBay doesn’t have any competition
which allows them to rule with a heavy hand.So many of you suggested
that it’s time someone develope a rival auction site.You can look
at it this way with no one standing in there way they’ll always be
calling the shots.Like the old saying goes united we stand and
divided we fall.I think there’s no time like the present to develope
a new plateform that will allow those making a living selling
digital product to move forward and not have to worry about what
eBay will do next.Let’s all hope we can learn from the mistakes
that where practiced on eBay don’t continue to bring us down any
furture.Keep the faith.
Andi
March 26, 2008Is 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.
MysteryBid
March 26, 2008Hey John, Please keep us updated on the ways we can work around this within ebay policy. I would like to know if we can still use dd software and be able to refund shipping fees if they do not want it shipped as well. Thanks for all your info.
Gene
March 26, 2008I 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
Wayne Jollimore
March 26, 2008Just when I decided to put up some digital products. This happens!
No wonder I couldn’t get the listing to work. LOL
I did see it coming though, ebay was losing a lot of BIG sellers
and buyers of real products due to the influx of ebook/ software sellers.
Actually now we can sell a ton of infor products on CD or DVD
and maybe get a good price for it. I remember in the early years before downloading, I bought a info CD and as I remember the chap
sold over 500 of them at $9.95 a pop within 7 days. Tht ain’t
pocket change. We still can do the same nowadays.
Good luck folks, I think I’ll go and burn some CDs. LOL
Free Wordpress Videos + MRR + Website
March 26, 2008Andi, 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
Phil Rogers
March 26, 2008Ebay is only banning digital products from auctions. You will still be able to list them under Classified Ads.
The whole point is that people were buying up cheapie ebooks solely for the purpose of boosting their feedback score.
Classified Ads do not fall within the feedback system, thus eliminating that method of boosting your feedback.
So, there is no need to convert your ebooks into tangible products. You can still send them out as digital downloads.
You just have to advertise them in a different way.
And Classified Ads get a 30-day listing, so it’s actually less work if you regularly submit and re-submit auctions to ebay.
Finally we can say goodby to those trashy, one-cent ebooks that were devaluing the ebook industry.
Don’t complain about it. The marketplace is evolving. Adapt or die.
Matthew Doehring
March 26, 2008There 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
Peter
March 26, 2008It may be Shock & Horror now, but as the dust starts to clear and our options are realized there will be “Opportunities Galore”
Problem + Solution = $ PROFIT $
Peter
http://www.HomeBasedWealth.com.au
JD
March 26, 2008Every 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
Scott
March 26, 2008Hello Socrates,
We picked up the scoop on this new eBay initiative easily this morning and have been fielding questions ever since. I wrote about this new no eBook or digital download policy in the Trading Assistant Journal ( http://snurl.com/22j5p).
Upon reflection and reading your post here, I may be persuaded to reconsider my headline for this story “e-Books are Dead on eBay – Digital Delivery – Information Products – Ending Forever March 31, 2008″. But I do not agree with eBay’s position and I will never say that the way this decision was handled was at all appropriate or fair.
In the eBay & Beyond Basics to Business Blog http://snurl.com/22mch it has been reported that some if not all digital delivery products listing have been cancelled summarily and without warning as full 6 days before this new policy was slated to go into effect.
I find this breach of ethics to be deplorable. No mention was made to refund the sellers for the fees involved and lost when these listings were cancelled en masse.
We are working on an eBay auction house alternative for digitally delivered products. I do not yet have a full commitment but according to my sources the auction service provider is already making massive changes today and assembling a new list of categories to place these digital products within their already operational site. (over 13 million active auction listings).
I will post on my blogs as soon as we have confirmation of the availability of this new channel for digital delivery products.
Of course I will update you here when we know…
Good Night and Good Luck
Scott Pooler
http://allbusinessauctions.com
Anthony Harris
March 26, 2008Hello 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
Helen
March 26, 2008It’s interesting that Ebay Australia is also banning digital downloads(haven’t heard officially yet) They have an “ebook” category and “Ebay Guides”(digital)under their book category. All I can say is lets move on. Support smaller auction sites, create our own. There were ebooks before ebay and there will be ebooks after ebay.
I have been selling physical books on ebay and have just embarked on the digital books, because I like the challenge, and I have ideas for creating ebooks. I will not be beaten.
Just remember folks. Things are created by thoughts, so get your thinking caps on. Things happen for a reason so lets move on.
Jay
March 26, 2008Does 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.
Amadeus
March 26, 2008Can anyone tell me the deal with Kunaki’s fees? They only talk about the $1.75 price of the manufacturing on the site, but I keep hearing different prices for “handling” from different people. $3, $6, something else? What’s the total cost of having a disc manufactured and sent to a customer?
max
March 26, 2008I 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.
J.W. Love
March 26, 2008I spent about 1/2 hour today talking to Ebay about this and there are bigger ramifications. You can still sell digital items but they must be sold in the Classified Ads under Everything Else. When a sale is made in Classified Ads there is no Buy it Now. Instead, the buyer has to contact the seller telling them they want to buy the product. Then the seller has to contact the buyer and give them their Paypal info so they can pay for it. Once payment has been made, the seller needs to email the download info for the digital product.
The really bad news is that items sold through the classified ads are considered off-ebay sales and so there is no mechanism to leave feedback. Feedback as everyone knows is a very important part of having trust in the seller and having successful sales.
The good news is THERE IS A WAY AROUND THIS! I’ve already used it in a relisting of a digital item that sold.
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. You can set this up with automated response using Outlook Express or Outlook, keying on keywords or numbers from the email title.
Under the shipping info, put free shipping worldwide.
This gets around all of the problems with just a little inconvenience and most importantly allows you to still get feedback without having to send an item in the mail.
digitalscrap
March 26, 2008Digital 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.
Tracey Edwards
March 26, 2008Even though cds/dvds might be realistic for some of you, for me (in Australia) it is unrealistic. For starters (before I even take into account production costs), postage to overseas would be US$8 or more and take 2 weeks. Can you imagine someone waiting 2 weeks for an ebook? I don’t think so.
I refuse to believe that there is no other way however, and will keep my mind and eyes open. I’ve not yet explored the classified ad format – even though that is $19.95 for 30 days here in Aus. OUCH!
I’m just going to wait until the dust settles and see what happens.
Tracey
http://www.tracey-edwards.com
June Tanner
March 26, 2008I 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.
Ken Mathie
March 26, 2008Hi John,
I now have a target market… I had a video CD created some time back and never bothered to sell. “How To Create Instant CD Products” I will burn a few coppies and get a couple of auctions going.
All the best,
Ken
Femi
March 26, 2008Thank 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.
Cybamart
March 26, 2008Hi there,
There have been people talking of “giving up” and likening it to “being
made redundant” – after all, for many, including myself, digital items are a
huge part of our income. But no-one should be even CONSIDERING
giving-up – there are ways around EVERYTHING and if anything this
should be spurring us on. Too often we rely on eBay for OUR livelihoods
and they show time and time again that they hold the strings.
Although quite early on for me as I only found out about this a few hours ago, I
have come up with ways of beating eBay’s new rule. There has been
suggestions on forums etc of still selling the digital items but posting them
out on CD which is, indeed, a viable solution but there has also been
apprehension about this due to time and cost when so many digital sellers
had everything automated. But fret not. I have read through the rules and
found some holes – I was going to post this on the eBay forum but fear
that the eBay moderators will see and change the rules so this is, right
now, quite exclusive.
The first thing is that eBay still allow local pick-up, so suppose you were
selling an ebook on how to learn French. Your title might be “How To
Learn French on CD-ROM”. Now, you can say in your title that you accept
“local-pick up” which means the buyer does not have to pay postal
charges and also state that the item can be “picked up” on your own
website. See where we’re heading with this one?!
Once the person chooses the free postage they can be directed to your
site via email (an autoresponder can do this for you) where they can get
their item without you having sold a digital item. eBay’s blissfully happy (or
unaware, either will do!) and you get website traffic AND advertising
income.
I have been doing this a long while myself. I have various eBay IDs and
sell niche items. As an example, on one such account I have been selling iPhone
unlocking software. Most people send out the software or ebooks they sell as a link
in an email or by using eBay’s current Digital Delivery tool but they are
missing out – big time. I set up part of my site http://cybamart.com as http://cybamart.com/aipunl
so that it has a member’s only section, send buyers to that page on
autoresponder once they have paid including the sign in details (to
demonstrate, I’ll give you these for free – please go to
http://cybamart.com/aipunl and sign in using Username “members” and
Password “aipunl” both without the inverted commas), once they have
signed in they get their software and more (always over-deliver) which comes on pages with Adsense. This is so easy to do it is untrue.
“But, Merril, I don’t have a website” I hear you cry – don’t worry :-)) I am an
experienced web designer and builder, I designed and built my own site at
http://cybamart.com and launched it properly 3 weeks ago. Within 4 days
it had a traffic ranking on Alexa of 4,565,597 and it went up by 2,000
within a week – the following week (now) it is 2,708,835 (having gone up by
1,000 today alone) (and, if anyone is interested, is the top 227,585 site in
Singapore…:-)) – all without even having been indexed by Google yet!!
I can build you a site and you CAN beat eBay, sell your own digital items
in your site’s store, have its own forum, it’s OWN auction site and use
eBay’s traffic to “locally pick-up” their items from your site.
Please see my own site and http://cybamart.com/cybasites for what I can
do for you – I personally built the lot from scratch. Make me an offer if you
like, no reasonable price I will refuse – I design and build the sites for small
businesses right now and can also build in an aution section so you have
your OWN auction site with PayPal carts and feedback systems – and
you keep the fees that eBay became too complacent to want to take of us
any more.
It was my own Mum who taught me, through actions, not words, “nothing
ventured, nothing gained” and you must live by that. Follow your dreams
and NEVER give up. I will personally help you in any way I can but don’t
let eBay get you down. I’m sure if eBay had been around in the days of
Latin then the infamous saying may have been “Non eBay carborundum” –
although I’m sure “illegitimis” may have still been incorporated into the
sentence 😉
And on that note I leave you to think about how we can truly conquer this –
I will accept any reasonable offer for a site if you want one and will put the work in to make it
as if it was my own. Again, I can build it however you like, mine again is
http://cybamart.com – you have not lost your business because of eBay. Far, far from it.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Stay defiant.
Merril
John
March 26, 2008Hi 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
Aaron
March 26, 2008The way i see it, its foolish
Yes its an opportunity
Foolish too hehe
Amit
March 26, 2008Hi 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
JS
March 26, 2008I am throwing a wild one out here, but for anyone, especially those selling higher priced digital goods….why not just offer free shipping? Plenty of sellers do it all the time in every category! I kind of think I am stretching it here as I’m sure Ebay has thought out whatever we are going to try to do to get around their rules.
I do have one suggestion which may be VERY feasible to those willing to do a tiny bit of extra work. You could get an envelope for, say $.05-$.10 apiece in bulk, plus a stamp for $.41 (geez, I think this is right…haven’t had to use post office for quite some time) and a piece of paper for $.05 for a grand total of approximately $.55. If you only charged $1.00 for shipping you could simply mail a letter describing the product and giving a link to the site where the download is. Or if it is a website you could generate some sort of “certificate of purchase” or whatever.
I know, just go to other pastures…which is why I will probably not even try either of the above or anything else. But I do understand that there are those of you out there that are really going to hurt…I know because I am one of them!
Look, I tried for a little bit to think of a way around this when I had a revelation. SCREW EBAY!!!! What would possess me to even think about creating any income that is dependent in ANY way on Ebay. This is not the first time that Ebay’s poor lack of judgement has harmed be…BUT IT WILL BE THE LAST!
I have no idea what to tell anyone to do, but I wanted to throw in these thoughts because I think they really are important. I know this sucks, but we must all think rationally and solutions will come. Take care everyone, and up yours Ebay.
speed yo
March 26, 2008surprisingly receive your email about digital products have been banned.
jason
March 26, 2008THE SOLUTION TO THE 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
Val
March 26, 2008Is 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).
ILKING
March 26, 2008It seems that ebook auctions are being roadblocked. Buy It Now are still being effected. Shipping out ebooks on CDs is not a good alternative. Might try other auction sites like Ioffer or Bidville.
Jo
March 26, 2008Hello 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.
ILKING
March 26, 2008BUY IT NOW items not below $2.50 dollars are not being blocked …. up to now
Jo
March 26, 2008BUY IT NOW items not below $0.01 dollars are not being blocked also …. up to now
Andi
March 26, 2008Im sorry about the negative attitude earlier in the blog. I love these things because in times like this its the cream that rises to the top and the rest fall away…
Ok there. is a way that I use where you can sell any ebook you like
in any Ebay market you like. I have pritty much kept this techneque to my self, There are probably some of you out there using it but it seems that theres not many of you. I am about to write a new ebook all about it.
The gerneral idea goes like this (by the way this has worked for me for 6 months now)
First of all you choose a market Lets say dog training.
Then think of a dropshipping item to do with dogs, say a dog basket.
Then list the dog basket in the dog basket section on ebay.
Then on the same listing under the sales pitch of the basket put somthing like ” Would you like some information on how to train your dog if so click here” You can get a little more creative than this but you get my point.
You then send them ( via the link) to your about me page where basicly you can do what ever you like.
I tend to promote one product at a time. for example I was promoting a learn guitar product (Jamorama) I found a good dropshipper who would dropship guitar strings worldwide, I listed them in the relevent section. after the guitar string sales pitch i simple wrote would you like to find out cool tips on how to improove…. click here to find out more.
And hey presto they have found my sales page to jamorama.
I sold lots of copies of ebooks and hey i even sold some guitar strings which payed for my ebay fees
Once you get the user to you about me page, its up to you what you do with them. Get creative people
Andi
Keith Purkiss
March 26, 2008I’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.
Dave Ovenden
March 26, 2008As you would expect, there has been a mssive reaction from eBay sellers to this announcement. From despair to joy and every other emotion in between, people seem genuinely shocked by this move from eBay.
I’ve been following many of the blog and forum posts and there seem to be 4 main options emerging from the majority of the posts.
To save people having to search through all the comments I’ve tried to summarise them all here:
http://mynetbooks.co.uk/newsletter/
I’m certainly going to try the first 2 options before giving up selling digital products on eBay but some people are quitting without even trying to adapt which, quite frankly, just amazes me. It takes all sorts I guess!
Regards
Dave Ovenden
http://DaveOvenden.com
Jim Young
March 26, 2008Greetings;
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
Stelios
March 26, 2008Here are my thoughts about this change:
1. If you have been selling low cost ebooks without building a list in the process… this change could be the best thing that ever happened to you! Start building a list so you can OWN your business and be immune to changes such as this one.
2. Don’t complain about things you can’t change. Instead keep looking for the opportunities. While most of your competitors are bitching, you can be cleaning house by acting quickly and adapting to the changes.
3. Take action now by testing eBay classifieds and/or selling your ebooks on CD.
Jo
March 26, 2008I’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?
ian
March 26, 2008Why do people see this as a good thing????, E-bay have shafted the small sellers so many times in the past two years ie “WE ARE LOWERING THE LISTING FEES” for certain items but if you read the small print the FVF goes up and basically you save nothing, the forums go balistic so they over a cheap listing weekend and everybodys happy again.
They did the same again with all the feedback crap acouple off weeks ago, again the e-bay forums go mad – but they then offer a fornights free gallery picture (which .com get all the time) and everybodys happy again.
So here we are getting screwed again, but you can use the classified ads to list your digital sales guess what E-bay make more money again at the cost of the sellers.
Watch this the next thing will be to use the classified ads you will need to offer Paypal as the only payment solution like what they did with PC software.
Sorry but I dont see anything good about this new policy.
Jo
March 26, 2008Hello 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!)
jcc
March 26, 2008No one seems to be stating WHY this policy change was made.
Does anyone actually know or is pursuing this?
I fail to see the difference in receiving an email confirming the item was purchased and then sending the item electronically as opposed to burning the item to a cd amd then mailing.
If I am using a seperate system not related to EBay for the electronic delivery, to send the digital item,then it is none of EBays business as to how I deliver the item to my customer.
I also fail to see how they will enforce this issue if you are using a seperate non-Ebay related delivery system.
If they insist that it is their business, then I suggest that we all band together to start a website that will compete directly with EBay and sell our items there.
If every Powerseller notified their customers that their business has been moved, then this can be accomplished.
I am sure we didn’t start our own business’ to end up being dictated to by a seperate entity as to how we can deliver our products.
I know that I certainly didn’t.
Another View
March 26, 2008I 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
Jad
March 26, 2008I donot see they are blocking the listings of digital items above 0.99 today as they were doing yesterday…
People are signing a petition here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Ebayinc/petition.html
and let us pray for a good ebay alternative!
Carlos C. Bayraktar
March 26, 2008FREE 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!
morris herman
March 26, 2008The Mr. Burke who made this directive, is in charge of feedback, SO WHY DOESN’T HE JUST DISALLOW THE FEEDBACK TO BE ENTERED INTO THE SELLER’S SCORE.(for digital things).
Miltski
March 26, 2008I 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/
CandyW
March 26, 2008with the March Feedback rule of you needing positive feedback or you will not get your money released from paypal to you or wait 21 days to see if a refund or dispute is filed… or you don’t get your money.. then we get hit with no digital products… it just seems to me that this is targeted all the little sellers.. those big sellers who have large companies and can wait 30 to 60 days for their money and have large budgets and not need it to buy more supplies .. such as cds , ink and shipping stuff… so it is the little sellers that ebay is after to run out of ebay… They think the high volume high ticket items of people with big pockets are the ones they are catering to… I can see that … I think it is only going to get worse with them in time with their rules…
I am sure alot of people will come up with some info products for work arounds .. just like people do everyday for google kicking them off adsense… or banning your website … It seems for everything on the internet that people try to try work arounds that someone comes up with something to block and stop .. and it is all about the money… … I think all this stuff about feedback is stupid .. why in the hell do they need feedback.. stores in the real world don’t have that and they sell lots everyday…
Anyway…digital products will have more value but where you going to get the sales that ebay gives you .. and if we all have websites sell the same old stuff as ebay .. who is going to buy from that … sure someone can suggest other auction sites but if they all worked so great … people would have been using them long time ago. I know lots of people that have tried yahoo auctions and others and don’t get the sales like ebay does…
ebay is like fighting city hall .. no one ever wins… or fighting google for your page rank back… it is a tough thing to do… We just have to come up with other ways to make money and get traffic… to it .. I am hoping someone comes up with a great plan.. all of you are great on here …
John Beer
March 26, 2008Hello 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
Mark
March 26, 2008Ebay has all sellers by the b***s. Either bend over, smile and let Ebay mount you like a buck jack rabbit mounts his harem or market off ebay. They never have and never will give a flying F about you or your business you built up the last few years.
Ebay says it’s either “My way” or the “Hiway”. FVF fees going up 300% a month ago and now since their crack $100 an hour programmers cannot control the 1/20th of 1% of feedback manipulators they shove the ungreased d***o where the sun don’t shine.
Al (PaPaGrizz) Nelson
March 26, 2008John 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
Jeff
March 26, 2008What is the latest news on the “Great Ebay Ebook Depression”?
I’ve seen alot of people stressing out over the policy changes.
Here’s my take on it: http://jesterz-court.com/THE%20GREAT.pdf
Easy enough and Free ebook too.
Thanks for all your great tips and advice!
Mark
March 26, 2008The 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!!
David Emswiler
March 26, 2008I have a proposition to make to those outside of the US.
I will create and ship the cds for a small fee which would be charged to the customer under the shipping and processing fee.
I would just need a copy of the digital file and the shipping information for customer and can add as many files as they want and will fit on a cd. Adding a second or third cd if more space is needed.
I will look into the pricing of cds, cases, and shipping and if you can let the readers of this forum and the newsletter know I set up an email account at bizstuff@brothertuck.net just for this.
Jeromy
March 26, 2008How 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?
robert
March 26, 2008if it isn’t a april first joke, they must be loose from god !
their programmers never managed to have a decent cross border search for people in a little country in europe, and more they can NOT do !!
time for a Gtrade aka gogle auction site…..
grtz,
a happy programmer
Stephen Spry
March 26, 2008I’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!”
Keith
March 27, 2008John I haven’t even got started with digital downloads and now I will have to burn to CD, must still be a easy way for me, I am sure John will come up with the work around.
jason
March 27, 2008THE 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
Andrae
March 27, 2008I agree, ebay is NOT treating us right. This affects both the sellers and buyers.
I created a forum to host all comments. Sign up and post. Lets show eBay we have something to say.
http://www.topebooksites.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2
Richard
March 27, 2008OK 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
FreeAdvertisingBlogger
March 27, 2008Hi John-
I found this out the other night when I tried to list another auction.
Question…I have not purchased the “Free eBay Listings” report but have been promoting it as an affiliate.
I wonder if this will have to be scrapped or reworked,
as well as the many products and ebooks that cater to eBay success.
I guess we’re all hoping eBay will rethink this rule and meet us digital sellers half way! Let’s cross our fingers.
In the meantime, I’ll be thinking outside the box, too!
Good luck!
SuperWAHM
March 27, 2008I 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!
TK
March 27, 2008Hi All,
I found this out the other day when I was trying to relist some of my digital items. It surprised the hell out of me. I was finally making some money selling digital items.
I can’t believe that ebay would do this the 1000s of sellers that specialize in digital download items.
Of course you can start putting your items on cd or dvd and start shipping them to your customers but it entails more work.
Or you can list you items for $9.95 in classified ads but when your used to paying more like 35 cents for listings this is a big difference. Especially if you sell cheap items for lets say 99 cents or a few bucks.
You can also list your items on craigslist.org or dealsforeal.com in free classified ads.
Or use youtube.com like suggested to promote your items.
Recently I created my own auction site to list items.
Its called ZILLABID.COM
You can check it out here: http://zillabid.com/
For those of you that would like to continue selling you digital items in auction format and be able to list multiple items and have the “buy it now” option, please feel free to list your items on my site. I will also give you $5 in your account just for registering so you can start getting you items listed right away.
Take a look. If you like it feel free to use it.
I also welcome any suggestions you may have for the site.
Good luck everyone.
Thanks,
TK
Donna
March 28, 2008Hi 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
David
March 28, 2008Hi John,
Yeh there’s more than one way to skin a cat, this will sort out the good sellers from the bad. There are lots of places to sell digi products other than Ebay!
Classified ads can be used to sell your own and clickbank products, you can put in payment buttons in your ad for direct sell or link to your ebook website if you have one, this is what my FiledownloadHQ product can do easily, that is create Paypal buttons and features a unique upsell feature!
Sorry bout the promotion!
Regards
David
http://www.filedownloadhq.com
Secure Digital File Delivery
Rem
March 28, 2008Why 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
Dave Ovenden
March 28, 2008I’ve just finalised my first eBay classified ad in preparation for the new eBay policy. Co-incidentally I had actually already started to experiment with classified ads about 2 weeks ago so I’ve simply adapted it for the new situation.
You can read more about it at my blog here:
http://daveovenden.com/ebooks-software/my-first-ebay-classified-ad.html
Anybody else runing classified ads? If so, how’s it going?
Regards
Dave Ovenden
Colin
March 29, 2008Like 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
Dave
March 30, 2008For me, the comments about looking outside the box are the thing. I came to John’s ebook business via Google, not ebay, when I go shopping I use Google, not ebay, even when I couldn’t find a couple of ebooks and got lazy and bought them, I used Google, not ebay.
People should remember that ebay, even though a large enterprise, is a tiny part of the world wide web, if they don’t want ebooks fine, there are plenty of people who, like me, use Google or some other search site, and never give ebay a second thought, and will still buy downloadable ebooks on the world wide web because they want information, quickly, not by dinosaur snail mail. I have resorted to using expensive special delivery in UK because 1st class post takes 2 to 3 days, people don’t want this, they want products quickly.
People should certainly look at other methods for driving traffic to their sites. I am only just starting up, and yes I will try the cd option using a third party company and software to make it as easy as possible, but probably only in the US unless I can find a similar company in UK, and I will try classifed ads, and until ebay uk stops it, I will begin selling on ebay, but I intend to look into as many opportunities as possible to avoid ebay in driving traffic to my site. Ebay are becoming like microsoft, they think they control the world and they will find they don’t.
Just the thoughts of someone new to ebooks but much experience of life.
Good luck to everyone in whatever options they choose
Dave Smith
Jad
March 30, 2008Seems 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?
Anonomya
March 31, 2008No one mentioned the sale of virtual in-game items. There is no way to ship them on CD – players have to meet in-game to make the exchange. Feedback is very important for these types of auctions since the buyer has little recourse if the seller is a no show.
I think this is the real reason behind the ban (and it is appropriate to call it a ban since Ebay is primarily an auction site and digital products are no longer allowed to be sold by auction).
Ebay has always struggled with these items since essentially the gamers are selling property that belongs to the gaming company to other gamers, however there is real work involved in finding these items and that is what people are paying for.
Why not simply set the lowest price for any auction item to $5 – $10? Or, why not add an “average item sale price” next to the feedback number? Or list the sale prices of all items indefinitely instead of removing auction details after a number of days? Because people would still gladly pay that much for many of the digital items that Ebay doesn’t want to deal with anymore. Their response that it prevents feeback fraud is just an excuse.
Issam
April 1, 2008No 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
Sarah
April 1, 2008Yes, I too have been reeling about the news and like John, I’ve practically closed my ebay shop. Ironically only the start of this year I’ve been trying to develop more high quality products – in physical form, in a particular niche. One of the programs that helped was this:
http://www.antique-e-books.co.uk/easy_info/
I liked it so much I bought the license to it and am selling it in physical form as well as a download. I think basically as John states in his excellent re-sell revival report you have to either embrace what could be ambitious for some or give up. Ebay is a fantastic tool for generating leads – if you see it as just that and not rely on it so much for actual sales you won’t be so devastated when they move the goalposts so drastically. Best! Sarah Lyle
Yara
April 4, 2008I 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
Yara
April 4, 2008anyone aware of any other companies other than swiftcd and kunaki?
KM9999999
April 5, 2008Hi:
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
Yara
April 5, 2008no it is not… all are in violation of ebay rules… why not removed.. this si what worries me for later… ebay depend on reports from other members to remove the items in violation… even before… an item may not be removed if it was not noticed by ebay…. so these items may last until they end and will never be removed… but if they caught, the sellers who are doing it may end suspended… so, one can do it, but it is risky… the problem will be for those abiding by the rules, who will loose sales because of these listings….
My experience with ebay taught me one thing: always go by their rules… sooner or later, they will catch you.. although you may sell less, but if you abide by their rules, you will sell forever with them.
Regards
Deepo
April 13, 2008I 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.
EricaLynn
April 14, 2008Zipidee just announced their support for ebooks:http://www.zipidee.com. Try their site if you can’t (or don’t want to) sell on ebay anymore.
Steve
April 16, 2008After 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
David
May 10, 2008Just a thought, could i send a letter to someone who has just purchased an ebook, and in the letter the download link.
john haskins
May 25, 2008Just 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
Louise Reilly
May 25, 2008Hi all ( John as well)
My husband first bought Johns membership to planetsms, thats what got him started on the ebooks, and digital downloads, we used ebay a couple of times, but with all the fees… well you can imagine, we setup http://www.wightauction.co.uk which is an isle of wight auction site, but we are used world wide, we are working on a digital download section that will be added to the members area, and are currently working on an ebay import for your feedback, we do welcome new members and if anyone would like to use our site then please do feel free to register, if you do choose to register send me an email via the site, tell me your username that you used to register, and tell me that you came from planetsms and ill credit your account with a further £50 (On top of the £10 signup credit) to get you setup and listing, we are doing some enhancements just now on the site
e.g rss feeds, social bookmarking, googlebase listings, automatic pinged auctions listings.
We have been contacted by a few ebay users in response to ebays policy, so changes on our site are reflecting this.
Louise Reilly
admin@wightauction.co.uk
http://www.wightauction.co.uk/
Valerie
January 10, 2010eBay isn’t the only online auction site and I think people are awaking to that fact
[…] I clicked through and John is telling the truth. You can read his full post on the topic by clicking here. You can also read eBay’s annoncement and the reaction to this on the eBay […]
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