Bad News on selling digital products on Ebay
A friend of mine, Socrates, has mentioned on his blog
that you can NO LONGER sell digital products on ebay.
The whole news is up at:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416
This is such a BAD NEWS for many eBAY sellers. However,
when we really think about the vendor’s point of view,
as well as the digital product seller’s, it wasn’t such
a bad news after all.
#1: The END of The Ebook Market Saturation.
Seriously, it is really hardwork to create an ebook or
software products. However, a lot of people will start
to refer eBAY to get it cheap for 99 cents on eBay.
By changing the policy on eBay, it actually increases
the value of each ebook sold. In other words, your
OVERSATURATED ebooks is suddenly worth more than ever.
Instead of heading to eBay, what happens is…
People will need to buy the products at the premium
price. Not only is this GREAT, this allows people to
read the content of the products that are being written
from each author.
Resources: http://Resale-Rights-Solution.com
#2: The ERA of Digital Product Delivery.
Bad news is always better for digital product delivery
systems. Now, with eBAY restrictions on selling digital
products, a digital product delivery system, such as:
http://mydigitaldispatch.com is worth more.
Why is that, Henry?
Think about this. Instead of focusing on getting cheap
leads on eBay, you can expect to make $10 or even higher
on each digital product that you sell.
C’mon, be serious, ok? How much can you make selling
a 99 cents product? It is NOT even enough to pay for
the gas.
Now, with the increase of the price TEN FOLD, I
personally think that Socrates should raise the price
of his system to $297 or higher. (HECK! You guys will
make TEN TIMES more money than before.)
#3: The BEGINNING of Quality Digital Products.
Once eBay officially restricts the selling of digital
products on their auction sites, many other auction
sites will start to do the same. It means that those
“junky” products will start to diminish on its own.
No more baiting. Quality is everything in the market.
It means that they either provide great products or
stay on the sidelines. PERIOD.
#4: Who Cares About Ebay For The ONLY Lead Generation
System?
Be realistic!
Ebay may be a HUGE marketplace. However, it does not
mean you should solely rely on it. Seriously, it is
not a life or death situation. There are many other
sources to BUILD your subscriber base, including:
I’ve helped more than 1,000+ partners to build thousands
of subscribers in a very short period of time. Some
partners even received 1,100 subscribers in 10 days.
(YES! 10 days)
So, keep digging!
You will find the goldmine in your so-called hardship.
Not really, actually.
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Related Posts:
Brutal Facts
Price War
Quality Vs. Quantity
Three Email Marketing Mistakes
Instant Solution
Michelle L Green said,
March 27, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Good blog post! With all the negative buzz about the digital ban on ebay, it’s nice to hear there’s a positive side to it all.
Michelle L. Green
JAMES AHRENS said,
March 27, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Well Well Well Don’t wory Ebay will get back into it again mark my words It will hit them where it hurts. No not because they make a killing in that market Because they have pissed off a whole lot of potential buyers of other products.
Heidi said,
March 27, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
You can still sell digital items on ebay in auction format just not as a download in any way.
The only change a seller needs to make if he/she wants to keep selling his/her digital items is to ship them physically on a cd/dvd.
It certainly puts a crimp in things but those who want to survive will have to adapt.
Heidi
Paul said,
March 27, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Nice and informative, Henry. Great tips as well. This should help most people realize that you cannot get online and rest on laurels, nor think that it is a ready made money machine for you to set something out there and expect payments to flood in.
As with any business, the changes in the models always will help the forward-thinking sellers to adapt and move with the changes rather than whine about it and worry.
Best,
Paul
Stuart said,
March 27, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
I think myself that Ebay have adopted a very
high handed attitude towards their so called Ebayers!
It took me a long time to get all my ebooks
ready to upload to my ebay store, so to wipe out thousands of small businesses in one day shows they could not care less about us and never did!
As regards the alternative of putting everything on CD — we are in a digital world
where everything is digital — TVs - computers– cameras - the list is endless, not forgetting the fact that everyone wants instant purchase and instant download, that after all is the thrill of internet commerce.
I think it would be better if we could dump Ebay altogether and find new outlets for our digital products — so has anyone any information in that direction as I am still new to Esales myself - any direction apart from CDs would be great and we could leave (STEAM RADIO EBAY) for good.
Thanks, Stuart.
Shon Jimenez said,
March 27, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I think this could be a good thing for me. Maybe I might now be able to make some money with my ebook powermall. Also I have started to send emails to everyone I know who sells digital products to list them on my auction site. Buy or sell your stuff at dot com is a good place to list them.
Dan Sommer said,
March 27, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
Hello Henry, these are valid points you make but only for those infomarketeers who create “101 solutions to fix” type ebooks. The type that sells for an upbeat price but with resell or even plr rights included.
However, for those of us who write our own 100+ page eBooks from scratch, and stuff them with research and experience. We never had to worry about the 0.99 cent eBooks found on eBay.
In regards to the statement about how much you can make from a .99cent eBook. Then those with sense used those cheap eBooks to get quality leads, which they then marketed their more expensive products to outside of ebay.
But I totally agree, that eBay should not be the only source for a business. As Dan Kennedy says, “in marketing the worst number is one”. Because you shoul always have multiple outlets and sources. Business is about change, so internet marketeers will simply just adapt and move on.
For one thing this eBay change should create a huge market for marketing eBooks that teaches how to move from eBay marketing to other sources of marketing, ie:
“How To Convert Your eBay Store To a Million Dollar Clickbank Store!”
:-)
Arlene said,
March 27, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Old saying. It takes money to make money. If your on a fixed income. Next to impossible - I was just ready to launch a biz on ebay with digital downloads. Real books and well as other things I could send via email. Spent a few months getting everything set up to work smoothly. Bam - yesterday shot down. I cancelled my ebay account. I will not be as part of a company that does biz that way. They do not want to bother with the small money market just mega bucks.
I’ll make my way somewhere else!!!!!!!!!
Joann said,
March 27, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
Yes, Ebays policy will put a damper on some sellers and buyers. No more automation. But like Heidi said, they will just have to put them on a CD and ship the physical product.
Thanks for all the tips Henry!
Dr. Kathy Abbott said,
March 27, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
Thanks, Henry, for keeping us up to date.
What alternative sites do you recommend?
True, this is an encouragement for those of us who publish well-researched, well written books!
Keep up the good work, Henry!
Irv said,
March 27, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
I don’t get your point about digital delivery systems. That won’t help on ebay anymore, so are you suggesting using them on other sites instead and charging more for the products?
Henry Gold said,
March 27, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Irv,
Focus on quality.
Henry,
Kris Williams said,
March 27, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
What is stopping the DVD and CD sellers to offer them at a penny or dollar and have it just shipping costs I heard as low as $.68 cents? I still do not see how this will help the eBook industry, prices still can be cheap for getting cheap feedback.
If eBay wanted to stop the penny auctions, there were other ways of doing this, not to ban all from selling digital items. There were legitimate sellers.
Unfortunately this hurt those legitimate sellers and those who had their apples all in one basket. Sad day. Luckily we didn’t have all our apples in the basket!
Good luck to all!
Kris Williams
Marc Sampson said,
March 28, 2008 @ 11:37 am
Hi Henry,
Interesting reading your post.
I’m not so sure that this sending eBooks through the mail is going to work. In this digital age, which eBay seem to be going back to the stone age, people want information immediately, like now, not in 5 days time, or even longer if it is being sent from overseas.
Also I’m thinking that eBook buyers may not know about this change if they don’t sell eBooks themselves, and as of the 31st March will still assume they will get an immediate download. When they don’t get it, you leave yourselve open for negative feedback and lowering your DSR’s. For this reason alone, I am not going to go straight in there and sell on CD. I am going to wait at least a couple of weeks to see how the market is for it.
Personally, I think, why are people saying, okay so we can’t sell digitally delivered products on eBay. The solution is simple to me. Don’t sell on eBay. Go to other auction sites like eBid or easybid to name two, and just type in eBook into the search box and see what you find. eBay is not the only selling platform out there. Also if people go down this route, then we should all learn from this, and that is not to rely on one selling platform as mentioned above in another comment.
The classified ads is a posibility though and something that I am going to look into.
I hope this hasn’t sounded too negarive. That wasn’t my intention, but just wanted to air my views.
Keep up the good work Henry.
Marc Sampson.
Max Ikbal said,
March 28, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
If ebay thinks that it is the one and only outlet to sell digital products, then boy are they wrong. After the “feedback from seller” controversy, they have already lost quite a few vendors. After this arrogant announcement of theirs, i see a stampede of people heading to sites like uBid.com and ePier.com
miroslav said,
April 12, 2008 @ 7:49 am
It is the law of nature. When system (e-bay) is on the strongest point, then internal forces produce controversies.Then this controversies tend to weeken or even to destroy the system. E-bay people start thinking that they can model the way people sell. No, salesman will find other solution, the only one that will be hurted, is mr arogant one. Instead of been thankfull for the leader position in international digital market, They excluded themself from the selling process…maybe they will discover this and repare… maybe they will be more arogant and proceed hurting themselves..who knows
Miroslav
Tony Harvey said,
April 13, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Henry, I’ve gotta hand it to you,
Man your on top of everything, you are right on target. http”th1market.com