That’s right, eBay has dropped a bombshell on the Information Product selling community. No more digital downloads on eBay.
Will eBay’s digital product ban ruin your business?
In case you haven’t heard, eBay announced yesterday that they will no longer allow the sale of products that can be delivered as digital downloads in their auctions.
Here’s the official announcement from Brian Burke, Director Global Feedback Policy:
***New Policy Update: Digital Downloadable Goods in Classified Ads Format Only***
March 24, 2008 | 01:00PM PST/PTBrian Burke
Hello…This is Brian Burke, Director Global Feedback Policy. Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation (both real and perceived). 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.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; however, because Classified Ad listings are a lead generation tool and do not result in transactions that go through eBay, Feedback cannot be exchanged between buyer and seller.
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 (not auction-style or fixed price). For more information about the Classified Ads format, please read Advertising with Classified Ads.
Sincerely,
Brian Burke
Director, Global Feedback Policy
“So now what? Am I totally screwed?”
There’s no question that posting $10 classified ads for each of your digital products every month will be an unacceptable solution for most of you.
This policy change by eBay to combat feedback manipulation has certainly taken everyone by surprise, and lots of people are scrambling to figure out what to do. I’ve been reading the forums and can feel the frustration that you’re experiencing.
That’s why I have decided to make it my personal mission to help you not only determine your best course of action, but to provide you with step by step guidelines on exactly how to execute this plan.
I’m going to provide all of this to my newsletter subscribers as a free mini course. Sign up below if you haven’t already.
Here are some of my initial thoughts on…
what you can do to survive and thrive!
- Reach out: First of all, if you’ve been selling digital products on eBay for any length of time, then you likely already have one of the greatest assets you could ask for: You have a list of BUYERS!
This probably isn’t news to you. In fact, building your mailing list may already be a key part of your business model. If it’s not, then it should be. If it is, then we need to make sure you know how best to utilize it.
If you haven’t already created a mailing list of your previous buyers, then I’m going to how to gather this information and import it into your bulk mailing software. I’ll also provide some sample emails so that you know exactly what to say to these people so that they feel like they know, like, and trust you.
- Relocate: Ultimately, you’re going to want to setup you’re own shopping cart site if you haven’t already.
Today, it’s incredibly easy to do this using free tools like WordPress and the WP-eCommerce plugin. For this setup to be most effective, you need to have your own domain name and a web hosting account.
I’m going to show you where you can get it all setup for you for free and how to optimize the site for best search engine results.
In the meantime, you may want to check out payloadz.com as a place to move your products temporarily. This option is attractive to me because sign up is free and they have support for the eBay API. There’s also a bulk product import function. These things may make it easier for you to get your product catalog moved over from eBay and operational very quickly.
Perhaps even better, but it’ll take a bit more work to setup a batch product upload is Google Base . There are all sorts of things that make this an attractive option that I’m going to do an entire post on it. I’ll include either screenshots or a video of exactly how to setup your spreadsheet to do a bulk upload. You’ll also learn step-by-step, how to setup a datafeed.
- Relaunch: Take this opportunity to do a relaunch.
Tap into that mailing list, setup a “coming soon” website with a great free offer for those who opt-in to your prelaunch list, and use the free education that Jeff Walker is providing in his own prelaunch for Product Launch Formula 2.0 to use psychological triggers and sequenced emails to really knock it out of the park on launch day!
Take action!
One of the best ways you can do this is to help me to help you. Subscribe to my newsletter (you already know this is cool, cause I’m giving you my free mini-course), but most importantly, participate! I’m going to have a survey up here very soon so that you can tell me the areas where you think you’ll need the most help in evolving your online business model.
In the meantime, use the comments box below to share how the policy change is going to affect you, what you plan to do differently, and what you need help with the most.
11 Comments
thanks for the tips
Hi
I’m with neoloch and they have asked that an invitation sent to all sellers of digital items. We would love to have you at the loch! Registration is free and you get a $35 credit just for registering and that can be applied toward listing fees. There will be a gala opening at neoloch this coming Saturday and we would love to see you there. There will be door prizes. http://www.neoloch.com
With free registration and a $35 credit on listing fees (which are alreaady much lower than ebay), what have you got to lose. Hope to “see” you on Saturday or sooner on the forums at the loch. There is even REAL customer service at neoloch.com.
Hi,
I sell on Ebay but, I also sell and have stores on Bidville.com, and Ioffer.com. Since the feedback change at Ebay were announced, I am all of a sudden getting a huge increase in my sales at those 2 websites. It makes me wonder…..
I really like both companies. They don’t have all the bells and whistles that Ebay does but, they also don’t have all the FEES. I know last night, Bidville was getting so many hits that some pages were not working correctly.
I also have an account with Overstock but have found that to be very costly and not a good option for me.
Yesterday, there were tons of sites listed on the Ebay boards. I will also be looking into those over the next few days. I will be posting my findings on either myspace or here. (My myspace is SMWOODY DESIGNS) Add me and I will add you.
Secondly, awhile ago, my daughter talked me into building a myspace page. Lets just say it has been worth the little bit of time I put into it. - Just don’t make it private if its for your business.
Good Luck all and Thanks for the tips!
Shawn
Your sign up form isn’t working correctly. It redirects to a 404 page.
Thanks for the info.
@Mather: You’re welcome man
@Smwoody: Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m glad to see you pulling it by the bootstraps and moving forward. I’ve been checking out a number of alternative auction and mall type sites, I’ll scope out the 2 you mentioned and report in a later post. One of my favorite store generator sites is shopify.com. They’ve done an outstanding job, and created their templating system in a very designer friendly way. As far as myspace and social sites, they’re a fantastic viral marketing tool. I recently started into Facebook and Twitter, and put it all together with FriendFeed.com Great stuff!
@Heidi: OMG, thank you so much for the heads up. It’s corrected now. In the middle of juggling a handful of projects, I was in such a hurry to get the site up, I completely overlooked it. Thanks again.
Quick question you guys, I was wondering what you might know about how the policy change will affect the buying and selling of complete website properties?
Just wanted to say,there goes my chance to sell all these e-books i have purchased,ALL SHOT TO HELL!!
@William: Heck no dude, there’s lot’s of ways I can think of to sell those eBooks of yours. I’m going to do a case study on Eric Holmlund’s sales funnel, this dude must be crushing it with his eBooks sales (which I am certain is only a small part of his business). Last I checked he’s one of the top 20 Joint Venture partners on Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula 2.0 which is going live today.
Anyway, I’m going to take Eric’s sales funnel apart and show you exactly what he’s doing each step of the way, to draw people deeper and deeper in to higher and higher value products, which are virtually irresistable offers. Plus you’ll see how he turns each new prospect into an affiliate and virally spreads the message.
Forgive me Eric, I’m going to be giving away your secrets.
But really, you can see what I mean for yourself by clicking through his offers starting with his “Join today and get 5 free ebooks instantly!” http://ericstips.com
THE SOLUTION TO THE EBAY BANNED DIGITAL ITEM 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
Try http://www.auction-warehouse.com no fees
How about selling books that you can also offer in digital form? Offer a reduction after the sale for people that don’t need a hard copy. This might get you through the ebay rule.
Hi,
Here’s a couple of thoughts…
If you sell $5 ebooks (For example) you only need 2 sales to make a profit using the Ebay classifieds right? So if you write a kick-@ss ad won’t you be in a position to make possibly more money than the previous download sales since the Ebay and PayPal fees ate up any profit from selling the digital products? (I know you may have been just building your list.)
Also, sell the ebooks, software, videos, etc. on CDs or DVDs and on the “index” page of the disk where you list all the items on the disk add a link to your web site, or a sign up form to your list for a bonus or freebie. Just add a note that they have to be online to submit the form and get their goodies.
Add banners to your index pg. on the disk and sell the banner space…
Put your links and URLs on the CD/DVD jewel case covers…
Can you still add a link on your Ebay about me page? Still use that if so…
That’s all off the top of my head
“Techie” Teri
PS. Add coupons on a physical paper/receipt in your disk shipment for money off your download-able products with a link to the sales page. Use a coupon script to get the email and names / give a code to enter into your sales page to give the discount…
PPS. Hope this helps
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