On 24th March 2008, eBay announced that “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.”

You can read the full announcement here:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416

Not surprisingly, this has created a huge reaction from eBay sellers which ranges from ’shocked and surprised’ to ‘outraged’ but there are also those at the other end of the spectrum who see this as a positive move and are seeking to exploit new opportunies out of it.

I’m firmly in the second camp! Life is about change and we can whinge and whine about it but it won’t make it any better. When there are shifts in a market like this there are always people who are able to benefit from it. These are the people that ‘think outside the box’ and approach the new situation with a positive mindset.

I do feel sorry for anyone that has built a significant business selling digital products using eBay and now feels that they have had the rug pulled from under them but they will need to adapt fast or their business will die.

I have been reading many of the forums and blog posts discussing this change in policy and there have already been many alternative approaches put forward. To save you the time of searching through all of the comments and forums etc., I’ve summarised the main options that are emerging below. I’ve also listed the pros and cons of each idea based purely on my own thoughts - you’re welcome to add yours by commenting at the end.

I will try and update this list regularly as the situation becomes clearer but for now this is the concensus of ideas doing the rounds.

Option 1

Use eBay classifieds to advertise digital products.

Advantages:

• This is what eBay wants and so it does not violate any of their terms and conditions
• There are no listing or final value fees payable to eBay
• The ads will appear in eBay item searches and in your eBay listings and eBay store
• There is a fixed fee of $9.95 for each ad and this buys you 30 days of advertising. Depending on how many visitors your ad attracts, this could be more cost effective than other advertising methods such as Pay Per Click (PPC) using Google Adwords for example.
• There appear to be no fixed policies on what can be included in a classified ad (N.B. This will almost certainly change in time!). So you can put an opt in box on the ad and collect subscribers that you can subsequently sell items to outside of eBay. You can even put a Paypal buy it now button on the ad and direct people to buy directly from there. You can link to your e-book website outside of eBay and sell items directly from there.
• Classified ads are promoted by eBay as a method of lead generation and this is precisely what many e-book sellers were using eBay for anyway. (That is why you could buy e-books for just 1 cent. The seller was using it to get a lead which he could then upsell).

Disadvantages:

• You will not receive a feedback rating from the buyer.
• All sales are handled totally outside of eBay which may put some buyers off.
• Together with the point above about a lack of feedback buyers may be more wary about trusting you as a seller.
• It also means that these sales will not count towards Powerseller status.
• The prominence of your advert and therefore the amount of visitors your ad will receive is totally dependent on the keywords in the title of your ad.
• It would be more expensive to run several ads every 30 days compared to the previous cost of listing multiple items.

Option 2

Transfer digital products to CD / DVD and sell them as physical items

If you want to go this route, a lot of the work can be taken out of the process by outsourcing the CD burning, packaging and delivery so that sales remain automated.

One company that offers this type of service is Kunaki.com and several people have also developed a plug-in script that work with their service to make it totally automated.

How to Automate CD Production & Delivery: I’ve created some videos that walk you through how to set up your products with Kunaki. You can view them at my blog by following the link below:

Click Here To View My Videos On Outsourcing CD Production.

You may also want to take a look at the plug-in scripts:

http://thediscbuddy.com/wso/

http://softwareking.us/pro/kunaki.htm

Also, David Lovelace has a special report out that talks about converting e-books and digital products into CD products and automating the whole thing. You can check it out here:

Click Here For More Information On Dave Lovelace’s Special Report

Click here if the link above isn’t working (it sometimes rotates and displays other more expensive products - good idea. Note to self - I must try that sometime!).

He’s dropped the price to just $10 if you use that link - normally it’s a $27 book. You need this e-book if you are thinking about going the physical product route and let’s be honest, anyone can afford $10. Believe me, it contains plenty of information that will help you make back that cost price many times over!

Advantages:

• Sales count towards Powerseller status
• You will receive feedback from buyers
• This method does not breach eBay policy
• Some buyers prefer to receive a tangible item in the post
• You can put unadvertised bonuses on the CD
• You can include a personal letter along with the CD which will allow you to build a good relationship and offer them other products
• You are able to capture the buyers name and address details so that you can follow up with direct mail offers in the future
• You can outsource the production and packaging of the CDs so that the process is totally automated

Disadvantages:

• Additional costs of CD, packaging and postage may put some buyers off
• Time involved in creating CDs, producing labels and covers, packaging them and then taking them to the Post Office. (If you do not outsource all of this)
• Additional cost of outsourcing all of the above.
• Not as environmentally friendly as a downloadable product. (Materials for the CD, packaging, fuel for delivery etc.)
• Not all digital products can be transferred to CD, e.g. Memberships, websites

Some people have also talked about a hybrid approach of listing and selling items as physical products (CDs /DVDs etc.) but then offering a downsell to a digital version by offering to refund the shipping and handling fee if the customer opts for a digital only version. Now, it’s not clear whether this would violate the new eBay policy at this point. My personal view is that I think it would and so I’d be reluctant to try this until it has been confirmed as OK by eBay.

Option 3

Stop selling digital items on eBay and find or create an alternative

Alternatives that have been suggested:

1. Set up an E-book Website

• Set up your own e-book website and use eBay classifieds plus other traffic generation methods to send vistors to it.
• Anyone serious about selling e-books should already have their own site anyway so this seems like a ‘no-brainer’ to me.
• If you don’t have an e-book site of your own, I’m able to offer this fully automated e-book store pre-installed with 50 e-books here.
• I’ve dropped the price to just $27 if you use that link - normally it’s a $97 script! PLUS it comes with Master Resell Rights so you can help other e-book sellers out by selling them the same script and charge whatever you wish.
• It’s the same one that I use to run my own e-book website and you can see it in action here.
• Your own e-book website can be totally automated so that it works hands free using scripts like My Digital Dispatch or SmartDD.

2. Use YouTube for Lead Generation

(Ssummarised from Jason Shepherd on John Thornhills PlanetSMS blog)

• Use YouTube as an alternative lead generation source.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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!
• Jason’s product teaching people how to do all of this can be found here.

3. Use Alternative Auction Sites

• Here are the sites I’ve seen listed in various posts. (I’ve not used any of them as yet so I can’t comment on how effective or useful they are. If anyone has tried them please add your comments below. Thanks)

  • http:/Ebid.net
  • http://www.globalbidstore.com
  • http://ozauctionsonline.com/
  • http://www.BooCooBay.com

• Also, check out the complete UK online auction sites guide - http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/auction.html
• And here’s the US version - http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/usauctions.html

The advantages and dis-advantages with this option are pretty obvious I think! Using alternative auction sites will certainly allow you to continue selling digital products in the same way as you do today but eBay is the biggest auction site in the world and so you are very unlikely to receive the same level of interest on these other sites. Not yet at least!

Option 4

Stop selling digital items all together

This is the doomsday scenario and unfortunately there are plenty of people who are comtemplating this option. Maybe that’s a good thing for the rest of us that remain as it will reduce the competition and to be honest if people give up at the sign of any difficulty or change then how committed were they in the first place?

At the end of the day everyone has to make their own decision on this but this is not an option that I will be taking. There is still a huge and growing market for digital information products and just because one avenue of distribution has been closed off it does not mean ‘game over’ for e-books.

Let me know what you think by commenting below.

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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