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eBay Bans Digital Download Items - Excellent News!
publication date: Apr 9, 2008
eBay Confidential eZine
25th March 2008 ****************************** SPECIAL REPORT: eBay Bans Digital Download Items!!! Excellent News!! ****************************** Hi, The news emerged yesterday that eBay will no longer be allowing digital download goods of any type on auction, fixed price or shop listings as from 31st March 2008. They gave less than 7 days warning for a change in eBay policy that has tremendous impact on thousands of hitherto successful eBay sellers. That means you can not: - sell instant download items through the digital delivery system eBay introduced just a few years back where, immediately someone paid using PayPal, eBay itself told your buyers exactly where to go to download their goods. - take payment and send products as email attachments. - take payment and send download details directly through eBay's message system. It was all so easy, it took just a few minutes to load each digital product on to eBay, then the whole thing worked on autopilot, even while you slept. NOW IT' S ALL GONE - THE CARPET HAS BEEN PULLED FROM UNDER YOUR FEET! That's the bad news! ******************* The good news is: ******************* Actually that was also the good news! This new policy is actually a blessing in disguise for many sellers of eBooks and other digital items such as software and resell rights packages. The changes are only bad news for people who can't or won't adapt to whatever options remain for selling digital items on eBay; it's also bad news for the few rogue sellers who used digital products as a means of getting a bad name for themselves and anyone else selling those items on eBay. You see, the reason eBay says they have banned digital download items is to prevent people offering digital download products with intention to manipulate feedback points. Sometimes people would buy, or sell, hundreds of digital items, literally for pennies apiece, and grow feedback of hundreds or even thousands of points within days. That high positive feedback score was used by a tiny few to fool other buyers into considering them trustworthy individuals, whereupon they'd use all this credibility to sell high price items on eBay with no intention ever to fulfil orders received before their crimes were discovered and they were finally expelled from eBay. So it follows, once the rogue element is gone from eBay, the vast majority of eBook sellers can now get the respect they rightly deserve and probably see their profits grow as a result of these short notice changes. I don't understand why so many people are complaining on and off the Internet about how these new changes will kill their information publishing ventures. They'd soon change their minds had they listened in on conversations in a PowerSeller forum yesterday whose members came to the conclusion that these changes are actually hugely beneficial for most information sellers. Let's face it, most people selling cheap eBooks weren't in it for the money, they were using cheap eBooks to grow a list of buyers with intent to sell again to those people outside the eBay system. It worked like a charm and it went like this: someone bought, you added that person to your mailing list, then you mailed those people every week or so and you'd almost certainly turn one in five buyers into regular buyers (Pareto's theory as mentioned by Oliver Goehler in a recent 'eBay Confidential' newsletter). So, although you might be making little or nothing selling digital products on eBay, you can very easily generate hundreds or thousands of pounds in easy profits every time you remailed those people outside the eBay system. But wait, there's even better news to come, because eBay has not actually banned digital products from their entire system as most people think. As eBay was quick to point out after a long day yesterday answering thousands of complaints from eBook sellers, you can still use eBay Classified Ads to sell your digital items or fulfil them on CD or convert them to print format instead. Physical products, on CD or paper, have higher perceived value than digital downloads so profit margins can be greatly increased for the same titles that have so far proved popular on eBay. Plus, there are still many ways to grow a list on eBay that don't involve selling at a loss to get a person's name on your mailing list. Let's cut to the chase right now, let me tell you why you can still grow a profitable list on eBay; why you can still make a fortune selling digital and other information products on eBay; why this unexpected ban might actually be a blessing in disguise. The old system was easy, definitely, you set up the system and left it to make money for you 24/7, even while you slept. It was so easy that few people even noticed eBay had introduced a great new system called Classified Ads until the old system was threatened. The fact is classified ads., on and off the Internet, have for centuries been an effective and inexpensive way to promote products of all types, including information. Classified Ads work outside the traditional eBay system, you don't actually have to sell direct from a Classified Ad., their main purpose is to generate leads for products you are allowed to sell outside the eBay system. One reason I gave up selling downloadable products a few years back was the sheer nastiness that sometimes ensues if an individual has trouble accessing their product and wants someone to blame fast. That someone is you, the seller, and instant download eBook sellers often found their feedback packed with undeserved and downright nasty negative comments. ***************** Turn the ban to your advantage! ****************** Here's the best news of all: feedback does not apply to eBay Classified Ads., there are no final selling fees of any kind to pay, and a Classified Ad. can run for 30 days for about 20 pence a day. - Classified Ads. are less problematic and less expensive than most other eBay listing types and they are just as effective at selling. - You'll get banned from eBay for promoting affiliate products through traditional auction, fixed price and shop listings, but you can list affiliate products all day long in Classified Ads. which, incidentally, also respond to eBay searches, unlike Shop listings. - There are many ways to grow a profitable mailing list on eBay, selling cheap digital products was just one way and arguably not the most effective way to grow a mailing list. You can, for example, write and link eBay Guides and Reviews to your About Me page where you are allowed to promote affiliate products. You can write articles or post in blogs and forums and again draw traffic to your About Me page to join your list and generate regular buyers for outside eBay sales. You can ... ..... oh, I can think of so many great ways to turn this ban on digital products entirely to your advantage .... but I can't tell you about it here, or I'll miss today's deadline for this newsletter ..... so The Powers That Be - actually Nic Laight, publisher of 'eBay Confidential' - has told me to be brief, to give you the facts about eBay's new policy on digital products, then work fast at creating two new reports for you to read in the next few days. Those two reports, working titles only right now, are: * How to Sell Wads of Information Products Using Classified Ads. * How to Grow a Mammoth Mailing List, Free of Charge, Entirely on eBay If you'd like a copy, it should be ready in a few days, please sign up at: http://www.canonburypublishing Oh yes, and the boss says, while I'm at it, add another report called '100 Places to Promote Your Information Products Free of Charge That Don't Involve eBay.' This one will be ready in time for next week's eLetter, it's very comprehensive, and it includes the exact system I use each day to promote my own information business. Until next time, Avril. |
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