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My advice on eBay Classifieds
publication date: Apr 9, 2008
eBay Confidential eZine
2nd April 2008 *** - What a Hard Week It's Been - My advice on eBay Classifieds - How to 'legally 'steal' £103,000 this year from the UK's biggest publishers. - Big Changes to eBay's Affiliate Scheme *** Hi, Oh what a terrible week it has been! All those changes at eBay, about not being able to sell digital goods except in the Classified Sections, have created so many problems for sellers, many of whom thought they knew all about selling digital goods in the Classified Ad. sections but now discover they actually know nothing at all! Unsurprisingly, eBay itself is unsure about what sellers can and can not do in eBay Classified Ads. Several times I have asked eBay staff about their new digital policy and how it relates to eBay's claims that Classified Ads are the only place that eBay allows the promotion of digital items. Some eBay staff say you are not allowed to sell directly off the page in eBay Classified Ads - others say you can sell off the page in eBay Classified Ads, sell affiliate products if you like, you can even use Classified Ads to take visitors to outside eBay sites. It's all so confusing, immensely frustrating, and even top eBay sellers are giving conflicting advice and information in their blogs. I wonder if all this confusion is the reason the Classified Ad system failed several times this week! *********** My advice *********** My best advice to anyone wanting to use the Classified Ad section to sell/market/mention/gather leads for digital products is not to jump the gun, wait a while until eBay rethinks its own policy on how Classified Ads work. When it does I'll be quick to give you the details. In particular wait until eBay decides whether the word 'sell' as used by their new Director of Feedback actually does mean 'sell' or does it mean 'market' or ... whatever other definition so many eBay sellers and eBay staff have been throwing around in the hectic aftermath of eBay's sudden announcement to ban digital goods from auction, buy it now, fixed price and shop listings. Their New Director, Brian Burke, said in the notification to eBay sellers regarding the ban on digital items: 'Using the Classified Ads format, sellers receive a 30-day ad at a fixed price. This solution enables sellers to continue to market their digital goods on eBay ... Sellers who wish to continue to offer digital goods can do so by selecting the Everything Else > Information Products category in the Sell Your Item form and choosing the Classified Ads format.' Two things in that notification make me think you can sell directly from a Classified Ad. Those two words, in context, are 'on eBay' as in 'continue to market their digital goods on eBay' and 'Sell Your Item Form' as in 'by selecting the Everything Else > Information Products category in the Sell Your Item form and choosing the Classified Ads format.' Here's my reasoning on why I think Burke's message means you can sell digital goods directly from the page in an eBay Classified Ad: * The words 'on eBay' would be inappropriate if the Classified Ads section is strictly for gathering leads to sell products later, outside of eBay. 'On eBay' to my mind means exactly what it says, ON, not OUTSIDE of eBay. * That 'Sell Your Item' form, the word 'sell' is quite explicit, 'Sell' to most people means to offer a product, take payment, hand over the goods. And it seems I am not alone, I have checked several top PowerSeller writers' sites and found my main role models also think it is possible to add payment options inside a Classified Ad and also to include links to outside selling sites via the Classified Ad. I found the best advice from Skip McGrath, he's a very clever man, and he's also a contributing editor to 'eBay Radio' and a teacher on eBay's own 'Consignment Selling Course'. ******************** SPECIAL ENDORSEMENT HOW TO LEGALLY 'STEAL' £103,000 THIS YEAR FROM THE UK'S BIGGEST PUBLISHERS! All you need is a PC, an Internet connection, a few hours after work and you're all set. In as little as one month you could see your first payment... and once it's running, the money will just keep going up and up. All you have to do is read this website, then collect the money: http://www.fsponline-recommend ****************** *** What the experts say *** Skip seems to believe selling can take place, under certain conditions, inside Classified Ads and has written a great article showing how it's done which you can read at: http://blog.skipmcgrath.com Skip's reasoning complies with other sites I studied, one of which contains a long and highly informative article to help sellers continue listing digital items on eBay and others who might consider using alternative sites to promote digital goods. You'll find the article at: www.associatedcontent.com These are what I consider the best advice from that lengthy article: '1. We can use eBay classified ads just to advertise digital products. - The ads will appear on eBay listings, eBay Stores but no selling through eBay will occur. ..... No PayPal button will appear on classified ads, if you see one it is illegal. - You can put a URL to get customers outside of eBay, where a sell can occur, but being outside you don't get a feedback for the sell. 2. Create a physical item: CD-ROM, DVD out of your digital product and you can sell it on eBay 3. Stop selling Digital Products on eBay, and sell them only on Websites (Editor: There's lots of advice here about setting up your own web site for digital products and attracting free and low cost traffic. 4. You can use alternative Auction sites to sell Digital Products. I cannot give you any suggestions. I try a couple of them and I don't like any of them. I have to say, eBay is the best.' One thing I did find in my own research that few people seem yet to have spotted is that Amazon's site also allows you to sell digital download products, via a partner company called MobiPocket. I've found another great site to tell you all you need to know about selling digital products via MobiPocket which you can read at: http://www.weberbooks.com/ *** Big Changes to eBay's Affiliate Scheme *** BUT WAIT. It's not all doom and gloom, eBay has actually made on big change that I really like. It seems they are no longer using Commission Junction to run their affiliate scheme. I found it very difficult to negotiate my way around CJ.com and I really didn't like having to work in tandem with eBay and CJ to promote eBay's affiliate scheme. Now I don't have to because eBay has created its own one-stop-affiliate-shop which you can read all about at www.ebaypartnernetwork.com Go on, give affiliate marketing a go while you are waiting for updates on whether eBay has worked out its own rules about selling or not selling digital products on eBay! Happy eBaying! Until next time, Avril |
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