eBay Shafts Digital Goods
In a move which shocked thousands of eBay digital goods store owners, eBay has banned goods with digital delivery methods - ebooks, music, software, web templates, domain name sales, design services, web hosting, craft epatterns etc - from being shown in their auction marketplace.
Instead, if you want to list such products, you have to now use their Classified Ads service.
Brian Burke, eBay’s Director Global Feedback Policy, cited “feedback manipulation” as the reason for this change in the official announcement on March 24:
… 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.
Apparently eBay reckons this will be better for all concerned as their Classified ads are regarded as a “lead generation tool” so all enquiries will instead be directed to the advertiser’s web site, and NO financial or feedback transactions will go through eBay.
If sellers DO wish to use the classified service to sell their digital goods, they get lumbered into the very generic “Everything Else>Information Products” category and get charged $9.95 for a 30 day listing.
Naturally the eBay forums are abuzz with lively discussion about this!
While on one hand you’ll get rid of a lot of the digital garbage that proliferates - eg MRR packages offered for under a dollar - this move has caused huge problems for a LOT of store owners who actually run legitimate online businesses through eBay, who have sold thousands of items and have remarkable feedback comments.
Poof! Overnight their business is totally stuffed!
The “urgency” of an impending closing auction date is no longer a tactic they can use - and according to lots of store owners, it was an effective one!
Time for Plan B. Ooops…. they have no plan “B”. Another reason to not put all of your eggs into the one basket.
Look, this is probably a case of eBay reacting to a few bad apples in a very large barrel, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the “feedback” issue is a coverup for the real reason. Perhaps avoiding liability for sales of pirated software or sexually explicit material?
And drat! There’s a whole chapter gone from a new info-product I was writing that I was gonna sell on eBay when I finished it!!!
Oh… BTW… coupled with the recent news that eBay canned their affiliate program with Commission Junction, this is making for interesting times for Internet Marketers… I wonder how many will be able to keep up to date:)
Tags: digital delivery digital items banned from ebay auctions ebayPopularity: 45% [?]
