eBay Bans Digital Downloads
ByIn this time of “everything digital” eBay decided that it was just too easy for people to make money by selling digital products that could be immediately downloaded – giving the customer the immediate satisfaction of having product in hand within minutes.
So as of Monday, March 31, sellers will no longer be able to sell digital products on eBay.
Why does this matter to you if you aren’t selling on eBay? Read on to find out…
This change has a lot of eBay sellers up in arms – and rightfully so. People who have made a living on eBay are now facing extinction or a total change in business model. Here are just a few examples of those impacted:
- those selling ebooks, resale rights, PLR materials, websites
- mom and pop shops selling images or patterns for birdhouses, knitted sweaters, and other handcrafts
- great cooks who sell their recipes through eBay
- information marketers who sell low-cost reports as lead generators
Ah! Now we begin to see the “rub.” eBay mentioned that those selling 99 cent reports to “manipulate feedback” (the Holy Grail of eBay) were causing problems. Apparently they were actually getting good feedback on providing quality materials within minutes. And it was just too much competition for those who have to ship products and charge extra for shipping and their time to do so.
So much for efficiency!
So why am I (a non eBay seller) so upset about this? Because I think it is very short-sighted of eBay – and it’s going to hurt a lot of smaller business owners in the short run. In the long run they will be fine. It just seems so pointless.
And what am I doing about it?
I’ve teamed up with Lisa Suttora of WhatDoISell to find a solution for the smaller eBay sellers who want to continue to sell their digital products. We will be offering a webinar on Friday, April 4 entitled
How To Set Up Your Own Digital Store For Less Than $10 Per Month
And what about information marketers who don’t sell on eBay? Well, that workshop will be good for them, too! We’re still working on the details, so watch this blog for more information in the next day or two. Meanwhile, here’s your action plan:
- Sign up for Digital Product News to stay on top of the latest announcements and be one of the first to learn about the Digital Store webinar.
- Read a couple of articles that Lisa has posted on her blog.
- Remain calm and keep creating digital products. I can assure you, there is a huge market for them – in spite of what eBay thinks.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments…
13 Comments
March 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Well my answer to the problem is to put my products on cd and mail them to the buyers. This will take longer and cost buyers more money for shipping and handling, and make sure to tell your buyers that ebay is at fault for them having to pay more.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
eBay is a day late and a dollar short to say the least, on this one.
Their feedback system was a ‘net joke looooong before this brilliant revelation
March 30th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
What’s next? Complain to Ebay and tell them we’ll have to go to Ebay’s competition to sell. My husband tells me there are a lot of auction sites out there.
March 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Certainly makes me glad I have no investment in eBay. This definitely comes under the “shoot yourself in the foot” heading.
A good friend of mine who makes a substantial living on line warned me a while back that whuile he had made a ton of money on eBay in the past he no longer was attracted, business-wise. Winds of change. UPS and the USPS are certainly partying on this news, though.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Eric – that was my first thought, too – to put them on CD and ship. But as you know that adds a whole additional layer to your work. And many of us don’t want to get into the fulfillment business. That’s why I’ve spent the past six days looking for the solutions I’ll recommend on Friday’s webinar. Look for the announcement!
Jeanette
March 30th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Dennis – since I’ve not been an eBayer I always thought the feedback system was easily manipulated. It would be so easy to have 15 “relatives” purchase your product and leave great feedback. But apparently eBay is under the impression that it’s fool-proof.
Jeanette
March 30th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Marilyn – I’ve found in my research this week that there are a lot of other auction sites online. However, none of them provide the traffic that eBay does. And frankly, none of them operate as smoothly. Some of the recommended alternatives I’ve looked at already have some heavy hitters in them – and you’ll be competing against them. That’s why Lisa and I teamed up to come up with a solution that will give you the best of both worlds – the traffic of ebay and the ease of purchase you’re used to.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Dave – great point! One of my daughters works for UPS – I’ll warn her of increased volume in the coming weeks. LOL
Jeanette
March 31st, 2008 at 10:17 am
Jeanette, Does this involve digital representations of products (e.g. graphic image) being sold or the digital products themselves?
March 31st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Paula – it’s the actual product that is digital. You can still use images in your regular ads, but you cannot sell anything that is downloadable. So if you sell images, music, ebooks, websites (we used to flip a lot of sites on ebay – I’ve bought several of my sites there, already built and getting traffic.),etc
Jeanette
March 31st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Jeannette, I always love your resources. You are a class act. Thanks for the heads up. I had plans to market through reports on E-bay, but will wait for your latest insights. Already ordered the new guide on advertising via articles, blogs, and postings. Thanks to you. Joanne Herrmann
http://www.healthychocolatezone.com
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Joanne – Looking forward to those chocolate reports! (grinning) We’ll actually be teaching a webinar this Friday on How To Set Up A Digital Store – and deal with the Ebay issue. Lisa Suttora, an eBay expert and a great teacher, will be joining me, so you’ll have the latest information from her expertise, as well as the technical solution from me. Hope to see you there!
Jeanette
May 25th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Just forget eBay. Not much point in kidding yourself they will come to their senses. They own eBay, they set the rules. Nothing wrong with that. So it leaves us with no platform to sell our goods. Well that is how it was when I started.
If you want to make your living now in the net then do some work, build a site and market it. This will give you a much better living than eBay ever did.
I had a good living from this method 8 years ago. I then started selling on eBay at very good prices, then after some years the prices dropped and I was in trouble. So I rebuilt my websites and soon got back to better times.
This is not difficult to do. Just takes some hard work.