Over the last two days all we have been hearing about is how eBay is cancelling all non physical digital items provided via download. Ok now the whole panic is over and we are all thinking about how to make our businesses work rather than just thinking “it’s over, all over” The ideas are all flowing from many blogs across the internet.
The problem is obvious to us all. How are we going to deliver our items without increasing the workload. Well the answer is obvious too. We can’t so I would say get used to it if you are going to continue selling eBooks on eBay.
What needs to be done is a little evaluation and a good look at the options:
1, We can sell items on eBay UK which has not cancelled digital delivery items yet.
• Not a good idea in as they will soon follow suit and we have all in the past had issues with copyrights. This may work for a short time but will not last.
2, Continue selling items across the world with manual delivery.
• This does seem to be the only option we have at the moment so is it a good idea or should we just quit! Of course not!
John Thornhill recently wrote in his Blog “First of all I know the automation side of things disappear, I know you can use fulfillment services but for me personally I wouldn’t do it. I need to be in full control of my eBay business.”
Dan Thompson Recently wrote in his Blog “I’ve used www.swiftcd.com in the past for a number of different projects, you simply upload the “Master” CD to them via their website, and then each time someone purchases your item, you just log onto the website, fill out the delivery form with the buyers name and address, and hey-presto, SwiftCD burn, print and ship your CD to the end user.”
Well to be honest I am going to agree with both of these solutions and both John and Dan are correct. However I would like full control over what I sell and deliver but I would also like to automate as much of my business as I possibly can, this is why I run this business in the first place, so I will be watching the outcomes of these two methods very closely.
I know I will Start selling eBooks from CD, I know I will start shipping from the UK to the UK at first to test the process, I know I will be packaging, Burning and shipping myself for a while, again to test the process. When I have my Cycle in place I will then start to use an On Demand Shipping service as the competition will really hot up as the eBook CD market grows and cheap outsourced delivery will be readily available.
I feel it is like we are going back to basics again, and looking back to 2005 I remember when the eBook market was a lucrative place around 5000 items worldwide for the search term eBooks (try it now it’s around 16k). I used to see resale rights eBooks sell for £5 ($10) each now they are selling for $1, just for the traffic alone.
This change from eBay is a drastic one, but I feel now that it has happened we will see a lot better content and the market will pick back up again. With less eBook sellers and less competition we now have the opportunity to drive the prices up in the information marketing section, the $1 eBook will now become the $5 eBook again No more 1p 1 page eBooks only good content from the guys who are willing to stick it out and roll with the changes.
Change stirs up the system and sifts out the old and replaces it with the new. This is a good thing for future eBook sellers who are willing to change.
Thanks For reading
Update:
What did I say “I will then start to use an On Demand Shipping service as the competition will really hot up as the eBook CD market grows and cheap outsourced delivery will be readily available.” There are offers coming in left right and center some as low as $3. I will let you know when I find a good one:)
Thanks again.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Dan,
Good to hear you are rolling with the punches…LOL.
When I first heard about the policy changes I gotta admit my first reaction was not positive.
After reading a couple posts about it, and reading the policy changes for myself first-hand, I realized the same things you and John have written about. The market changes, that’s nothing new, but it DOES help to keep those of us that are willing to adapt more opportunity to not only profit, but to thrive as it weeds out the chaffe.
I know that the ebook and ecourse market has become a full-time endeavor for some, but it shouldn’t have been exclusive. Now more than ever the quality and reliability of the information products will go up, and FOR EBAY the change over to CD is important, but the main point will still be traffic and upsales, AND they can STILL BE AUTOMATED!
I know that it is a general human condition to see the bad before looking for the positive, but it should be obvious that this isn’t the death of ebooks. The “Great Ebay Ebook Depression” doesn’t have to be.
I’m sure you’d agree with that.
In response to all the fear and concern surrounding this I wrote for 6 hours straight to try and help alleviate that fear for our readers and hopeful entrepenuers out there.
(get a free copy on ebay=search How to survive the ebook depression)
It’s the first time I wrote purely for free to help our industry, and I gotta say it feels REALLY good to be where I am, rather than sitting where I was last year, or even a couple years ago (before I found John and Planetsms) so I felt driven to give back.
Thanks to you and John for all your leadership and community!
~Jesterzusmc
G’day Daniel,
I agree with your thoughts of Opportunity!
One thing we can rely on with eBay is Change.
Thanks for the info because I want keep my site http://www.ebookbargains.com.au forging ahead, despite ebays digital ban!:)
Peter
http://www.HomeBasedWealth.com.au
HI, Dan! As far as I can see, you can still sell instant download products in the Classifieds section of ebay. The downside being no increase in Feedback but your sales can still be fully automated because in a classfieds type ad you can add a Paypal Button to the page!
In fact I have found a seller who is doing this RIGHT NOW:
http://cgi.ebay.com/HOW-TO-REALLY-MAKE-MONEY-ON-EBAY-USING-CLASSIFIED-ADS_W0QQitemZ170197455865QQihZ007QQcategoryZ102483QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Also, you can edit the page at any time during the 30 days the ad appears – so you can add or subtract items for sale in your ad. I don’t see why you cannot have 30 – 40 ebook covers on the right side of your ad, in descending order, short descriptions in the middle of the page and on the left side of the page a PAYPAL BUTTON to complete the ordering process.
It seems rather straight forward to me. So digital downloads are possible if you think of your Classified Ad as nothing more than an html page out on the Internet somewhere except you are getting traffic to it from the SEARCH PAGES of ebay, or by driving traffic to your Classfied Ads from outside ebay in a variety of ways.
This will not help the Powersellers much who depend on continuing feedback – but consider this: there are plenty of Powersellers right now who do deal in digital products sold on CD and DVD’s and are doing very well. I have bought stuff from them, myself. This can be automated with a fulfilment service if the content is good enough or rare enough to warrant the additional cost of receiving the item in the mail.
I have sold digital scrapbooks and rare radio shows on CD quite successfully to a niche of mine (for prices starting at $9.95 to $24.95) and mailed them off myself to buyers in Japan, Australia, England and Germany. Great feedback, too!
So there is light at the end of the tunnel, here!
We just need to put our thinking caps on and perhaps popularize the Classified Ads as THE source of digital downloads on ebay?
Best always, David~
Thanks Guys!
‘David’ I like the idea you have with regard to Classified ads. I must admit it is a good traffic builder idea and probably well worth $10 per month. I will look into it. The only downside is like you say, no feedback and no Powerseller status.
Burning and sending CDs is unfortunately going to have to be the way forward. This does take away one of the major benefits of ebooks for customers – the immediacy.
If you have a spare couple of hours you can buy a product off ebay and start reading it within a couple of minutes. We will definitely see a rise of the non-ebay ebook sites methinks
Hi Daniel,
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 to. 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.
Regarding having one page in the classified ads section with different paypal buttons. I like this idea, but I can’t see how this is going to come up in search results on eBay because it picks up key words in the title of the listing.
I hope this hann’t sounded too negarive. That wasn’t my intention, but just wanted to air my views.
Keep up the good work Daniel.
Marc Sampson.
Zipidee just started selling ebooks: http://www.zipidee.com Try their site if you can’t sell on ebay anymore. They also allow you to sell video and audio digital download too.
Hi Guys,
I know that there are a lot of auction sites out there Victa you can buy this one here http://www.rainworx.com/rwAuction50/, personally I do not this any of these sites are going to work for a few reasons:
1, Popularity – will people know where to find these websites. Guys use Bay to build feedback, community relations, searching the marketplace, impulse buying and so on.
2, would you also like all the eBook sellers from post 31st March all selling on the same site again? you just got yourself around 16k worth of competition.
I am going to stick by my guns and say, eBay is still the main place to sell your items, digital or not. When the digital dust settles I will start selling again.
Thanks for the info you share in here Daniel those are really helpful to everyone..
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