Well, eBay has done it again. They’ve shot themselves in the foot and alienated good selling partners. Effective March 31, 2008 eBay will ban all digital deliver sales worldwide. To learn more you can click this link: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416
There are ways around this problem, though. The primary way is to burn the digital product onto a CD and then mail the CD to the winner of the auction. This adds some cost and initially I think you’ll find that sales of digital products will drop. Give yourself a little time, though and eBay users will adjust to the new system.
People adjust to things they can’t control much too easily. Since there’s no serious competitor to eBay’s auction service everyone will grumble for a while and then move on. So how can you benefit from this scenario?
By planning on delivering digital products via CD within the next month or so and building your new eBay business!
Think of it this way… Thousands of digital delivery products just disappeared from eBay. There is a huge marketing hole on eBay starting April 1st. By placing auctions for digital products delivered via CD you’ll be positioning yourself as one of the premiere digital products vendors!
Yes, what eBay has done is bad. Yes, in the future they’re going to keep slapping people around and alienating them. Sooner or later, though some big player is going to see the opportunity and eBay will be put out of business by a new auction service that is more interested in making real money than by creating new ways to lose money.
In the mean time real marketers are like cows. When they eat all the grass in one meadow they simply move on to greener grass. We sell where we can make money until we can’t make enough money in that area any longer. The we move to a new area where we can make more money. It’s just the way things work.