Has eBay Destroyed Your Digital Business Dreams?

March 25th, 2008 | by Paula Brett |

I switched on my `puter today to the news that eBay’s latest bomb shell is to ban digital items from being listed as of 31st March.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416

This has inevitabley caused a great deal of concern and anger amongst those who sell digital items such as eBooks, hosting, audio, graphics, software and other digitally delivered items, on eBay.

Check out some of the comments here

I have to admit that I gave up ranting, raging and firing off emails to eBay a long time ago. In my experience, they will do whatever they want to do and no amount of boycotts and strikes will deter them from that.

I think we have to be think positively here and adapt. Change is notoriously unwelcome by the vast majority of people but couldn’t this be a great opportunity to adapt, change and evolve our businesses for the better?

This news really doesn’t have to be the end of your business selling your eBooks and other digital items on eBay. In fact, I can see lots of exciting possiblities.

The only real downside I can see is that your customer won’t be able to have instant gratification in the form of instant download. But then again, you will not be at a disadvantage because it’s not as if your customer will be able to go elsewhere on eBay and download the same product instantly either - all digital sellers will be in the same boat.

There is no reason why you can’t burn all your digital items to CD and send them via snail mail. Yes, of course, this cuts out the automated aspect of your business but it really only means that you have to set up a new system.

And the possibilites for adding bonuses and extra information and items to the CD are endless. All of the places and products that you directed your customers to after buying from you digitally can still be included. You can still overdeliver and give fantastic value for money.

There is also the chance for you to become more than a faceless download link to your customers - they will actually be holding your CD in their hand, full of goodies - full of your personality! And I don’t think that you’ll be losing out on your list building, as you can easily add a link within the CD to a sign up page, or any other pages you wish your customers to have a look at.

Is there a possibility here to send a physical newsletter to your customers, and not just get them to sign up to a digital mailing list?

Physical items have always held more perceived value to customers than a download link. And just think, you’ll have no more emails telling you that their link won’t work, or that they don’t know how to download items, or they can’t unzip your product.

“But this will mean me spending my time packaging items and schlepping to the Post Office every day and it will cost me a fortune buying CDs and packaging etc.”

Not necessarily!

First of all, remember the higher perceived value I just mentioned? In my opinion, you will be able to charge more for your products to cover these expenses. Shipping and packaging will be taken care of, as you will now be charging for this.

There are two ways you can produce your CDs…

1. Create and ship them yourself
2. Use a service to create and ship them for you.

Let’s take a look at some examples

1. If you go to a website like www.bigpockets.co.uk you can buy

• pack of 50 CDs for GBP 2.99 (about 6.00 USD) this works out at about £0.05 per CD (approx 10 cents)
• a 50 pack of cardboard CD mailers £1.49/$2.98 = £0.02/$0.04

Of course, there are other websites that offer similar deals but to burn and pack a CD using the above example would cost you 7p (or 14 cents)

You will then need to factor in shipping costs and what your printer ink and perhaps petrol travelling to and from the Post Office regularly will cost you.

2. Alternatively you can use a service that would do the whole lot for you - yes, a bit more expensive but well worth thinking about. I haven’t extensively researched these type of companies but one that I have used myself quite a bit is www.swiftcd.com

Swift CD are based in the US and they will burn and ship a CD for you to anywhere in the world.

For just $3.69 you get a CD containing your contents, a custom label printed on the face of the CD, manufactured at order-time, packed into a lightweight mailer, addressing and customs forms (when necessary). They guarantee shipment within two business days for the US (4-7 days internationally), and usually ship same day if they receive your orders by noon New York time.

Again, you do need to add on shipping costs which are $0.41 within the US and $0.90 for everywhere else but you won’t have to use your printer ink and make the trip to the Post Office.

Another service that might help those eBayers in the UK is the `print your own stamps’ facility offered by Royal Mail. I used this when it was first introduced and it’s simply a case of opening an account, uploading some cash to your account and then printing your stamp to a label. Whack the label on your cardboard mailer and stick it in the post box. No queueing up in the Post Office!

Perhaps US readers will comment on whether there is a similar service in the United States?

I’ve also been told about a product called Disc Buddy, I’ve not actually used this product, but it looks pretty interesting and might be worth viewing the video.

I hope this post has given eBay digital sellers some ideas and, most of all, some encouragement not to give up. This isn’t the end of your business — it’s just a case of re-evaluating and devising a different system.

Best wishes

Paula

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