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I‘ve just read on John Thornhill’s blog that eBay will be banning the direct selling of digital items such as ebooks, audio mp3’s, domain names etc from March 31st 2008.
Sadly and quite arrogantly, eBay have deemed it necessary to only give a weeks notice on a policy that will dramatically affect the businesses of hundreds of sellers.
Targeted Campaign
The justification for the digital item announcement was that many ebayers were only buying/selling digital items to pad their feedback rating. This new policy will obviously eradicate that problem. It also appears to be part of a targeted campaign by eBay against feedback abusers, coming hot on the heels of their hugely controversial announcement to stop sellers leaving feedback for buyers.
Unfortunately, the business model of many vendors is to sell low-priced ebooks to generate leads and then upsell the buyer to higher priced items.
That model no longer exists.
It will however still be possible to market digital delivery items using eBay’s Classified Ad format. It costs $10 for a 30 day listing and allows you to link back to, and process payment from, your own website rather than through eBay. As nothing is bought or sold on eBay itself, no feedback mechanism is provided.
Also the ad stays up for the full 30 days so you can generate multiple leads/sales from the one ad.
Physical Products
The other alternative is to create physical products by burning ebooks to CD and delivering them by regular mail. Although the instant gratification of receiving an ebook within minutes will be lost, this may well be the way forward for many marketers.
Still, the biggest lesson to take out of this is never to place your entire business model at the mercy of one company.
Tags: auction selling, digital ebook selling, ebay
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
One thing we can rely on with eBay is Change.
It 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
Hi Peter,
You make a very good point that this presents a big opportunity for those marketers smart enough to adapt. I’m sure there will be a lot of innovative new ideas floating around soon.
Cheers,
Graham
Zipidee 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.
Being able to turn on a dime is what makes business go ’round. eBooks are still a viable product to sell online….
Barbara Lings last blog post..RANT - What the eBay Affiliate Program is Missing Part 2 - Parallel Universe Shipping!
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