**  PowerSeller Profit Reports **

Newsletter #5

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1st April 2008

*  eBay Bans (some) Digital Download Items and Ruins the Business of Thousands of InfoProduct Sellers - Why I Don't Think That is Really Quite True!

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eBay Bans (some) Digital Download Items and Ruins the Business of Thousands of InfoProduct Sellers - Why I Don't Think That is Really Quite True!

The news emerged recently that eBay will no longer be allowing digital download goods of any type on auction, fixed price or shop listings as from 31st March 2008.

They gave less than 7 days warning for a change in eBay policy that has tremendous impact on thousands of hitherto successful eBay sellers.

That means you can not:

-  sell instant download items through the digital delivery system eBay introduced just a few years back where, immediately someone paid using PayPal, eBay itself told your buyers exactly where to go to download their goods. 

-  take payment and send products as email attachments.

-  take payment and send download details directly through eBay’s message system.

It was all so easy, it took just a few minutes to load each digital product on to eBay, then the whole thing worked on autopilot, even while you slept.

NOW IT’ S ALL GONE – THE CARPET HAS BEEN PULLED FROM UNDER YOUR FEET!

That’s the bad news!

The good news is:

Continued Later

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Continued From Earlier

Actually that was also the good news!  This new policy is potentially a blessing in disguise for many sellers of eBooks and other digital items such as software and resell rights packages.

The changes are only bad news for people who can’t or won’t adapt to whatever options remain for selling digital items on eBay; it’s also bad news for the few rogue sellers who used digital products as a means of getting a bad name for themselves and anyone else selling those items on eBay.

You see, the reason eBay says they have banned digital download items is to prevent people offering digital download products with intention to manipulate feedback points.  It sometimes happened that people would buy, or sell, hundreds of digital items, literally for pennies apiece, and grow feedback of hundreds or even thousands of points within days.   That high positive feedback score was used by a tiny few to fool other buyers into considering them trustworthy individuals, whereupon they’d use all this credibility to sell high price items on eBay with no intention ever to fulfil orders received before their crimes were discovered and they were finally expelled from eBay.

So it follows, once the rogue element is gone from eBay, the vast majority of eBook sellers can now get the respect they rightly deserve and probably see their profits grow as a result of these short notice changes.

So I don’t quite fully understand why so many people are worried on and off the Internet about how these new changes will affect their information publishing ventures.  They’d soon change their minds had they listened in on conversations in a PowerSeller forum yesterday whose members came to the conclusion that these changes are actually hugely beneficial for most information sellers.

Let’s face it, most people selling downloadable eBooks weren’t in it for the money, they were using these eBooks to grow a list of buyers with intent to sell again to those people outside the eBay system.  It worked like a charm and it went like this: someone bought, you added that person to your mailing list, then you mailed those people every week or so and you’d almost certainly turn one in five buyers into regular buyers (Pareto’s Theory aka the 80:20 / 20:80 rule).

So, although you might be making little or nothing selling digital products on eBay, you could very easily generate hundreds or thousands of dollars in easy profits every time you remailed those people outside the eBay system.

But wait, there’s even better news to come, because eBay has not actually banned digital products from their entire system as many people think.

As eBay was quick to point out after many hours of answering thousands of complaints from eBook sellers, you can still use eBay Classified Ads to sell your digital items or fulfil them on CD or convert them to print format instead.

Physical products, on CD or paper, have higher perceived value than digital downloads so profit margins can be greatly increased for the same titles that have so far proved popular on eBay. 

Plus, there are still many ways to grow a list on eBay that don’t involve selling at a loss to get a person’s name on your mailing list.

Let’s cut to the chase right now, let me tell you why you can still grow a profitable list on eBay; why you can still make a fortune selling digital and other information products on eBay; why this unexpected ban might actually be a blessing in disguise.

The old system was easy, definitely, you set up the system and left it to make money for you 24/7, even while you slept.  It was so easy that few people even noticed eBay had introduced a great new system called Classified Ads until the old system was threatened.  The fact is classified ads., on and off the Internet, have for centuries been an effective and inexpensive way to promote products of all types, including information.  Classified Ads work outside the traditional eBay system, you don’t actually have to sell direct from a Classified Ad., their main purpose is to generate leads for products you are allowed to sell outside the eBay system. 

One reason I gave up selling downloadable products on eBay a few years back was the sheer nastiness that sometimes ensues if an individual has trouble accessing their product and wants someone to blame fast.  That someone is usually you, the seller, and instant download eBook sellers often found their feedback packed with undeserved and downright nasty negative comments. 

Here’s the best news of all: feedback does not apply to eBay Classified Ads., there are no final selling fees of any kind to pay, and a Classified Ad. can run for 30 days for just a few pennies a day. 

-  Classified Ads. are less problematic and less expensive than most other eBay listing types and they are just as effective at selling. 

-  There are many ways to grow a profitable mailing list on eBay, selling cheap digital products was just one way and arguably not the most effective way to grow a mailing list.  You can, for example, write and link eBay Guides and Reviews to your About Me page where you are allowed to promote affiliate products.  You can write articles or post in blogs and forums and again draw traffic to your About Me page and get people to join your list and generate regular buyers for outside eBay sales. 

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Avril Harper Products

Make Money Tearing Up Old Books and Magazines and Selling Them on eBay

Bank Big Profits Selling Vintage Topographical View Postcards on eBay

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