Have you heard the word? If you are selling digital products on Ebay at the end of March you cannot sell there no more if it is a digital download. They are going to make you use classified ads. I figure they are taking in at least $10,000 dollars a week just in listing fees if they accept 40000 items at .25 each item and they are just going to throw it away. Read about it here: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416
Thats a massive blow if it's true, designers who sell templates on ebay are going to be hurt by this, I hope this doesn't include domains too
eBay move the goalposts . . . once again. Although we may feel eBay is throwing money away - I'm sure eBay has good reason to make this change in policy. What eBay ebook sellers need right now is a solution to this problem and way to successfully sell ebooks on eBay without hassle. Surely there is an answer to this problem, without having to resort to eBay Classified Ads system. Anyone got any answers . . . Help !!!! Be seeing you
Wonder if they will let this fly then.. WTS a ball point pen. With this purchase you will recieve a ebook or domain or whatever digital product.
The new policy is to prevent feedback manipulation which is a good thing for some, but negative for others. This doesn't remove the ability to sell digital products on eBay but they should be placed in the classified section so that feedback can't be exchanged for the transaction.
I'm personally happy with the decision. The marketers of ebooks and things like that have totally swamped the website. I was thinking about buying a WoW account on eBay the other day and all I could find was "how to level your character" guides. It was annoying.
Even a million dollars is nothing, eBay is going to start failing if all the do is keep on making the site worse every day.
I think this is a bad move like I said, it will hurt a lot of legit sellers, what if people preffer to have digital downloads, or have a reason for wanting digital downloads as opposed to getting the item mailed.
Why are people upset? I think the purpose of hte site is to buy from individuals not companies that have migrated there and in my opinion filled the place up with spam.
I tried listing to the other Ebay sites with Spoonfeeder and it would not allow any at all. I noticed someone saying that they were a buyer and it 'would not hurt them'. When all of the prices start to go up and they pay the shipping and handling charges I would like to know how they feel about it then. Ebay will not represent the buyers when items are sold as classified items either. The whole idea of getting digital downloads, I thought, is to get a product quicker with no shipping. The big mistake was the 'immediate download' idea. There are so many things that can and do go wrong that there is no wayy. Right now my host has been down all day and I cannot get a reply from him on DP either. I am beginning to wonder if they have taken the money and run even though I have already paid for a year of service. If that is true I get to redo all of my websites for the umpteenth time.
it's for the good and precautions. True ebay will lose money during this changes month but later it will all be stabilized again. Also think about hoe many of whoelsale list vs wholesale items confusion will also be wiped out (people are buying whoellists for $xxx thinking its itmes because most sellers disguised them as products), and it will sure do lower the copyright infringements in digital products or it'll become if you still want sell, make effort to make it become physical.
As I understand it, this policy change does affect domain sales as well. It's this part of the policy I've put into bold italics that includes domains: Template designers can still sell their goods as long as they put it onto CD, then it becomes a 'physical' product. There is a way to automate this process, and I think the extra costs are extremely reasonable. In one way it may be good because it allows the seller to have a more professional presentation - the perceived value is higher so they can actually ask more for their physical products. It doesn't just hurt sellers, but buyers too because now they are going to have to pay for shipping costs as well as higher costs because the physical products will have some costs associated with them. But since this move affects all physical products, hopefully buyers will accept that either they check the classifieds for what they are looking for or they pay a bit extra.
I agree with you Surfbay, I think eBay must have a good reason to make a move like this, which has got to have some impact on their bottom line and customer (sellers) satisfaction. It sounds like they are going after people who buy/sell 1cent products in order to gain feedback. I'm not sure that this move is the best solution for that problem - but they know their business better than I do (I hope! ). There are answers - basically the 2 solutions are: Classified Ads: I know they don't currently get as much exposure, but that might change now. I buy digital products off eBay because it's much more convenient for me, I don't have to pay shipping costs to New Zealand and I get the goods much faster. So if I want a digital product now, I'll have to seek out what's listed in the classified ads. Hopefully buyers looking for digital products/instant downloads will do the same. Keep in mind that you may pay more for a classified listing, but it runs for a month and you can generate multiple leads from that one ad. Turn digital products into physical products: yes it takes a bit more time to set it up and it will cost the buyer more for material costs and shipping. In the past most buyers may have gone for the same product as a cheaper digital download. But now those same buyers will have to either look in the classified ads (making them more popular) or pay a bit more for a CD/DVD and shipping. It's not like you are trying to sell a physical item that someone else can sell cheaper as a download. All your competition will be in the same situation. If you go the physical product route, you don't even have to stock all the materials, spend the time burning to CD and running to the post office every day. There are ways to have it all automated for you. It will cost around $1.75 more and of course the buyer will have to pay shipping. The buyer shouldn't be unhappy with you about the shipping costs, after all you didn't change the rules. Anyway, this came as a big shock to me as well. I just wanted to offer a bit of hope and some solutions... maybe a different perspective. For myself I'll be looking at implementing both solutions and just see what works best.
There are 3 solutions. My solution to it was to start my own auction. It is at http://digitalauctions.us .
This would still hit hard as many buy eBooks for feedback only. EBook selling websites will be ok; most of my eBooks have a link back to my site. I started off selling on eBay but have not needed to over recent months. Thanks Brian
Hi Brian Many do buy, and sell eBooks for feedback only, but then that defeats the purpose of feedback. No one is going to complain when it's a 1 cent auction, unless they don't get positive feedback. It may be harder for those who don't have powerseller status yet to gain it. It's great you don't need eBay now. May I ask is that solely because you have so many ebooks out there with links back to your site?