The recent announcement regarding digital goods on eBay will adversely affect many sellers, not just those who offer eBooks - or at least that is the general consensus. According to the March 24 announcement, "Sellers who wish to continue to offer digital goods can do so by selecting the Everything Else>Information Products category in the Sell Your Item form and choosing the Classified Ads format (not auction-style or fixed price)."
After a couple of days of heated discussion and panic on various eBay groups and forums, no one is really clear on what items (other than eBooks) are really affected by this policy change. We all have some questions for eBay:
The announcement was actually very vague. Is this policy change ONLY for those selling digital items in the "everything else > information products" category, or does this apply to ALL digitial items on eBay? If all digital items are included, does this mean logo design, auction template design, web design, and other design services where the product is digitally delivered after a service has been performed? These services are listed in the Specialty Services category. Will this policy change wipe out the graphic design category on eBay?
What about food recipes? Many of these are listed in the Home & Garden > Food & Wine > Recipes section. Are these now not allowed because they are digital downloads? They are not listed in the "information products" category.
What about clip art collections? These are listed in the Computers & Networking > Software > Graphics & Multimedia section.
What about stock photos? These are listed in the Cameras & Photo > Stock Photography and Footage section.
There are many more examples, but I think you get the point.Was this announcement intended for the 1 cent eBook sellers, or every single seller of any type of digital item? I keep waiting for a follow-up announcement to clarify these issues, but haven't seen one yet.
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