Breaking News – Digital Delivery on eBay is Dead Beginning March 31 2008
e-Books are Dead on eBay (core listings)
eBay has been breaking a great deal of news these last several weeks and now they have come up with one more controversial decision…
***New Policy Update: Digital Downloadable Goods in Classified Ads Format Only***
March 24, 2008 | 01:00PM PST/PT
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
Examples of Digital Delivery Products:
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Software
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Books
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Guides
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How To Manuals
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Marketing Plans
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Photographs
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Artwork
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Classic Fairy Tales
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Children’s Stories
This new policy is a major reversal and will end hundreds, if not thousands of very successful businesses using Digital delivery products as a means to deliver valuable information to the consumer without delay and at low cost.
Digital delivery is not a scam widely used to manipulate feedback. Unless you consider most of these sellers having maintained great feedback by serving customers with products they want and delivering these products via electronic means, a manipulation in some way.
eBay provides a service which is meant to advertise products and services at a reasonable cost. Why then would eBay suddenly determine that sellers who craft products to fill a niche are somehow scamming the system by actually delivering value for their customers? If these digital delivery products were all scams, the feedback would take care of the issue and the sellers would not stay on eBay long.
Given the fact that these sellers deliver a product quickly and give a good value for the price paid eBay feels they are using the system in a way which was not intended. They are selling and delivering fast paced items which bring them good feedback. If feedback were the only issue, why not limit the feedback tally to a certain number per week? Or put an asterisk next to a sellers feedback profile indicating “excessive good feedback due to successful digital products sales”.
e-Book and digital products sellers usually have a low sell through rate according to recent Terapeak research. With a 20% sell through rate and an average selling price of $1.20 per item eBay may be feeling this category is inefficient for fee generation when listed as core items. This change may coincide with the new listing fee system which recently went into effect. The new system benefits sellers who re-list items multiple times and have a low cost item with a low sell through rate. With digital delivery products averaging 3000 listings per day we assume eBay sees a less than optimal return from this segment of sellers.
What do you think?
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Is eBay tossing out digital delivery marketers because they are “Manipulating” the feedback system?
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Or is eBay trying to reduce the losses incurred by this category because of the recent fee changes?
Not all digital products sellers are exclusive to that niche. Many brick and mortar businesses sell low cost guides for equipment or how to manuals via digital delivery. (even Sears has sold PDF versions of manuals for lawnmowers to washing machines on their own website and on eBay). Do you think eBay has taken these sellers into account when they made this drastic change with almost no warning?
There are many sellers only selling on eBay for one reason, and that reason is to offer digital products to a massive market with incredible traffic. When these sellers are forced to use eBay classifieds they will also be forced to look for another venue to operate within and to sell these same electronically transferred products. Before this recent announcement digital delivery and e-books were one of the hottest growing categories on eBay. Why kill growth?
I’m screwed then….that is like half of my monthly income gone!!! Thousands I’m talking. I will adapt. Getting into internet affiliate marketing now. sighhhhhhh
eBay will burn in hell.
Well well eBay have finally taken a step back into the dark ages. This is the information age and they are finally putting an end to digital items sold on eBay! eBay recently stopped guys from selling digital items for less than $1 this would have quite easily stopped the feedback manipulation, however it looks like that was not enough.
Did someone from eBay just think “ok lets give thousands of eBook sellers, photograph sellers, template sellers websites sellers, digital consultancy sellers and much much more 5 days to re structure their business or hit the unemployment office! Well done eBay another well thought out idea with excellent timing!
There are ways around this and I will be looking into them. Lets hope when eBay realise what they have done they think twice.
My initial reaction to this was quite negative. We built an eBay store based entirely (at least initially) on digital delivery items. We then became PowerSellers based in large part on digital delivery items. All while maintaining an honest 100% positive feedback score.
Then, I thought, what opportunities has eBay provided to us in this decision.
1. eBay has provided us the opportunity to learn more about the classified ad sales.
2. eBay has provided us the opportunity to learn to sell more efficiently and effectively.
3. eBay has provided the opportunity to build, grow, and expand our affiliate network marketing side of our businesses.
4. Finally, and most importantly, eBay has provided us with the opportunity to build a new business (or businesses) on other auction sites – something we should have been doing all along.
Tim Jones
http://www.gatoroxinc.com/blog
http://www.guide2disney.com
http://www.destinationsinflorida.com
http://stores.ebay.com/magical-mouse-books-and-more
Fire Brian Burke.
The man is an idiot and completely out of touch with what is going on with eBay – he must have been promoted from their customer support department.
The poor developers there slaved over creating special Digital Delivery enabled listings – it’s one of the things eBay jointly developed by meeting with and talking to the eBay seller community.
The side effects of this decision far outweigh the original reason and justification for the decision.
Let’s not forget that the reason he gives is that digital items are reproduced at little cost.
Wow.
Are they going to next ban things that are ‘produced’ at little cost… Say, anything from China?
How about any digital products under $10 can’t be listed or something similar.. I am sure there are some holes in that solution because otherwise it would have been the new policy, right?
But whatever..
It would seem that eBay could hire people that have the brainpower to think of real solutions?
Maybe they do and the people in charge are not listening to them.
Here’s the problem: eBay has developed an immortality complex – it thinks it cannot die and the only thing they worry about it increasing profit and profitability year after year.
But the corporate graveyard is full of such companies – and they all die because of people in position of power that are clueless about what really makes success in their business.
Brian Burke is that type of person.
Fire him today.
I actually feel OK about this policy. I know that eBay has been trying to find a way to stop people from selling e-books as a way to get feedback. Some eBay “experts” and scammers actually TELL people to sell e-books in order to get lots of good feedback quickly. eBay doesn’t want that, and I agree with them.
So they’re not stopping you from selling this stuff. They’re taking away the feedback thing so that this can’t be manipulated anymore. The “experts” will have to come up with some other scam to tell people how to get good feedback quickly.
That’s what this is about. It’s not about the items being cheap. It’s about them being a major “front” for buying and selling feedback. As a Classified Ad, they can still be bought and sold, but they can’t pump up feedback.
Debbie,
Thank you for your comment.
While you may be correct about a small amount of sellers using digital delivery to gain feedback, I don’t think you have considered the difference between core listings and classified ads when it comes to realizing the benefits of eBay traffic.
Classified ads are not available in the general (core) search of eBay listings, not unlike like eBay store listings. This leaves very little reason for sellers of digitally delivered products or eBooks to use eBay at all.
The reason that these products are offered on eBay at all is to attract the traffic from the core listings as auctions and fixed price items.
eBay developers worked long and hard to create this feature and now all of that work has been trashed by a perceived feedback issue seeming without proper consideration.
If feedback is the issue, why not create a minimum price or limit the feedback per week or per category? i.e. a seller could not receive more than 5 feedback per week from digital delivery items and buyers could only receive one feedback per week from the same category. This would solve any feedback issue while allowing the sellers to continue to provide quality products and service to their buyers.
Today we are seeing reports from other blogs that all digital products of some sellers have been removed from eBay without notice. The sellers were sent an email stating they had violated a policy which was not announced at the time, and now does not go into effect until March 31st.
How can any business treat customers in this manner? The fees from thousands of listings cancelled without cause or notice will most likely not be refunded for this obvious mistake.
While the feedback issue could be solved in many ways, this is not an equitable solution for the sellers who have spent years developing these products and the ad copy that accompanies them. Digital products are a legitimate way to market your business outside of eBay. They provide value for the buyer and a way for the business owner to create a relationship with the customer.
I would like to stay neutral on this subject, but there is too much wrong with this entire situation.
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
I should resign immediately for being an idiot. I should really look over the buyers who are suspected of purely gaining feedback instead of blacklisting an entire genre of items. I should realize there are powersellers who sell digital items and couldn’t care less about feedback.
Come on people it has nothing to do with the feedback like eBay says.
I have reported 1000’s of people with .01 auctions and eBay did nothing.
They want to make 9.95 per ebook thats more then most make on them.
They make a ton of money on these auctions. I have a store/Selling manager pro and I list about 20 auctions a day. They make 210.00 of me a month + the Final Value Fees and I’m not a huge seller. They can kiss that good bye.
They should go after the ones that are under 1.00 these are the one that are scamming for feedback.
eBay doesn’t care about us digital product sellers that followed all there rule changes and put all the stuff at a 1.00+ and fixed auction like they asked.
We supported all the powersellers and didn’t list for 2 weeks to keep the fees down that would have costed you the most now you support us and don’t post on ebay for a week till they change the rule of no more digital items in auctions.
Fair is Fair. I lost money to support the powersellers on eBay and now it is your turn to do the same.
Starting March 31st 2008 don’t post auctions or buy anything on ebay for 1 week ending April 1st. Spread the word
eBay Go after the scammers and not the sellers that follow the rules and want to make money and not feedback.