Brian Burke, Director of Global Feedback Policy has announced to take place on the eBay platform.
From 31st March these goods will be restricted to the and listed in the category.
Ebooks in particular have a reputation for being used to build feedback and give a false impression of a sellers reliability. Often sold for as little as a penny by listing them in Classified Ad format they’ll be taken out of the feedback system entirely. Classified Ads are listed on the eBay site for 30 days, but are effectively adverts for off-eBay sales.
It’ll be interesting to see how the digital download market changes, whilst many of these products are get rich quick schemes others have genuinely valuable information. Hopefully once they can’t be used for feedback padding it’ll clear the way for those offering useful content to prosper.
Currently it’s not clear if the policy will just apply on eBay.com, or if it will migrate across all eBay sites. If you find out please let us know.
16 Responses
😥 I got a great recipe for beef wellington from a ebook seller, sad sad news.
I learnt the secrets of becoming a powerseller, and it only cost me 1p. And I got a nice green blob for my curiosty… I was so impressed, I bought another. And another. And another…
Then I realised how easy they were to sell and how they bumped up my DSR’s and my feedback score, even though I had only sold £5 worth of product, i had pages and pages of glowing feedback!!
🙄
It’s a long overdue move, but I wonder how it may affect the the genuine ebook sellers who list products at a few ££ rather than 1p.
All those 1p transactions where the whole payment goes in fees. Poor old PayPal’re gonna be skint 😆
Are there any genuine ebook sellers on eBay? If there are, they’ve been well & truly buried under the manure.
Rather ironic on today of all days I browse to the eBay.co.uk home page to be greeted by this particular set of popular products 😯
copy of email from brian burke on .com https://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000671814&start=80
“Our second largest market (Germany) has never allowed digital goods, UK and Australia are banning the goods outright.”
There are numerous sellers on the US site that have legitimate ebooks.
I just think ebay management said, we don’t want to deal with it so this is the quickest way to solve the problem.
I just think ebay management said, we don’t want to deal with it
Of course, this IS the way that they are dealing with it.
I have heard lots of sellers say “I can’t be messing with some US/Italian/Canadian/South American buyers, so I am not supplying any of them”…they are making a global judgement based on a small sample.
Same thing at heart as all of eBay management decisions isn’t it?
If you feel that something is too much trouble for your business, or not helping your bottom line, just don’t handle it any more. End of story.
I don’t understand why we expect eBay management to be any different to the rest of the business world. Sometimes business decisions are made that look strange/unbelievable/downright wrong to the outside world, but it is down to any business to decide what makes sense to them, not everyone else….
Josordoni,
Not quite an Apples to Apples comparison. When eBay decide it’s too much trouble and make a change, they put some people out of business.
If a seller decides not to sell to a certain country because its too much trouble, there is limited impact.
No, it is not a perfect analogy I’ll give you that…
but what I am trying to say is that every business MUST make decisions according to what it best for that business, and can only take account of the effect on other people in so far as that may impact on their (the business’s) bottom line.
It is for the other people who may be affected to then consider their own business profile and make any adjustments necessary.
I find it very naive of anyone to think that eBay (or any other business who are not a registered charity, or have openly stated philanthropic guidelines that they choose to abide by) would consider what they do in terms of whether it will put people out of business or not. They are interested in their own business, and it is for us to be interested in ours.
I’m probably taking this a little harder than I should because I personally know good people who are going to be affected.
Its just business doesn’t wash with me. At some point you have to ask “should we really do this” Maybe they did.
Hey Randy, don’t take it too hard. As you know, the only constant with eBay is change.
With eBay generally, sometimes I feel like I am witnessing an example of If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!.
Biggles,
I has to be difficult for eBay to measure some of these changes as they are all coming dso close to each other.
One change may have impact on another and give you inacurate results and there is still the law of unintended consequences to deal with.
With Amazon, you just list and price appropriately and you get sales. With eBay you have to jump through so many hoops even the part-time sellers are spending every waking moment trying to figure it out.
That’s not quite true Randy. On Amazon the difference is that you have to jump through the hoops before you can list the item in the first place. Try joining the merchants@ program for example, or try listing something that isn’t in their product catalogue….
It’s not just a list and price, it’s just different pain points
Yeah, I have to quit looking at things through the eyes of a media seller. It is very easy for us.
I’ll have to work on that.
Brian Burke has answered questions on the new digital downloads policy on The Chatter which is well worth a read