I was given a copy of Internet Selling For Newbies, a new program being offered by Mike Filsaime and Omar Martin, 2 of the “names” in online business (once in awhile there’s a great benefit to being on a bunch of internet marketing lists).

Martin and Filsaime have been involved with internet marketing for years, and they’ve been very successful. Their credentials in the field are impeccable. And that experience shows in their new product.

I just wish I’d had access to something like this when I was a beginner. I have a hard drive full of “how to” materials that don’t come close to being this clear and this comprehensive. And, even though this is geared toward beginner, I found good information that kind of pulled a few things together for me. And I’ve only just started a full reading. The modules having to do with social sites, media, traffic, and joint venturing promise to teach me a bunch!

Oh, and the price is unbelievable. I’ve seen courses offered for 10 times this much that don’t come close to this amount of information.

As you might have guessed, I’m giving this program a huge thumbs-up recommendation. You can read more about it at my Internet Selling For Newbies Review site.

So, I gave into my 12 year old inner self and spent an afternoon reporting digital delivery violations to eBay. What an incredible waste of time! There are a few vendors who are no longer listing, but the majority haven’t changed a single thing on their listings.

All was not completely wasted time, though. I did find some vendors who are actually selling ebooks on CD; I mean, they’re actually making sales. So I’m taking a closer look at their businesses and plan to emulate what they do.

I did see that there aren’t many offering free shipping. It’s more likely that they’re selling at auction with a beginning $.99, but charging full bore for shipping and handling ($2.95 to $3.95). Their offerings are also much more specifically listed to category, something I’ve not paid that much attention to.  And they don’t sell from stores, they auction their CDs.

I am still working through the eBay Classified Ad manual and will let you know. There have been a couple of personal life issues that got in the way of finishing that book and implementing the concepts. One of the advantages of working online from home is the ability to take that kind of time away.

I just realised that I’m talking about doing research on eBay without talking about the how. I’ve been doing this so long, I forget that what seems easy to me can be confusion to someone.

So here’s what I mean about checking on how other vendors are doing, and what they’re doing. Log into your eBay account, and then click on the “advanced search” spot next to the search box. You’ll see all kinds of ways to do searches; by seller and completed listings are the two I find most useful.

Just be careful. It’s easy to get lost looking at what’s working and not working – useful, for sure, but not to replace action (that was to remind me as much as you!).

All right, I’ll admit it. I’ve totally given in to that 12-year old inside of me. You know, the one that yells “It’s not fair, you can’t do that, I’m gonna TELL!” And I am telling.

My continued research shows this business of digital delivery for regular listings is widespread. In looking at one category – information products > how to guides > how to make money – with just 180 listings, there were almost 20 sellers offering digital delivery, and most of those with multiple listings.

Initially I only looked at the $.99 and below listings, but after accidentally opening a $9.99 item and finding “email delivery” just big and bold in the listing, I decided to check them all.

Yeah, I know, not exactly a productive use of time, except that in a way it is. If we can get eBay to enforce the digital delivery prohibition, then it should have a direct impact on my sales.

So, I started reporting the listings, a tedious process when you use the “report this item” link at the bottom of the individual listing. But today I did find that there’s a way to report multiple listings – limited to 10, but still – although it’s by item number, so you have copy the number from each item. But I have to open the listing to be sure it’s a digital delivery offer – some sellers have the language in some of their listings, not all of them.

This is the direct link to the reporting page:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ContactUs&wftype=2023&rcode=BN%25P10122&subject=Digitally%20Delivered%20Goods&bcrumb=%20Home%20%3E%20Help%20%3E%C2%A0Membership%20%26%20account%C2%A0%3E%C2%A0Rules%20%26%20policies%C2%A0%3E%C2%A0Digitally%20delivered%20goods&instruction=&expirationDate=

Or it can be found by going to the A-Z help index, to D, to downloadable media (policy), then to contact customer support at the bottom of that page. You are presented with a box in which to put the listing numbers of items that are non-compliant.

It is frustrating to think that eBay will just tell the offenders they can’t offer digital delivery other than for classified ads, because we certainly know they’re not doing any checking on listings to be sure policy is followed. And there are still the listings that offer “pick up” for the free shipping, and I don’t know that eBay will do anything about that kind of uncertain language.

I do encourage you to report offenders when you find them. If you sell information products through anything other than classified ads, then you know the kind of expense that entails, for supplies and postage, if you’re being honest and in compliance with eBay rules. When folks cheat, it takes a big bite out of your income.

Another thing I found in some of the listings was an exorbitant shipping price for folks who actually wanted the CD – $10 in a couple of cases. I guess eBay wouldn’t have noticed, since the actual listing itself says free shipping.

I also found someone selling 4 brand new fiction bestsellers (The Twilight Saga) on CD for $.99 and offering resale rights. I don’t think this person understands the concept of copyright, but I’m afraid they’re going to find out soon and in a very expensive way. I know there’s some confusion about public domain and the way the copyrighted material is delivered. This seller apparently thinks because they can put the books on CD, the copyright for the book itself is negated. Hope they have a good lawyer!

All of this nonsense did provide some good research on what is actually selling and what the good, compliant sellers are doing to maintain their businesses. This is research that should have been ongoing for me, but now has slapped me upside the head. This certainly doesn’t negate the need to diversify my business, but there are things I can do now to help the eBay part of my empire add financially.

Enough of the rant. I have eBay sellers to report! And a lot of work to do on my own listings.

Be well. Be successful.

I’ve mentioned in the last few posts how slow the ebook selling business seems to be on eBay, but I confess to not having really taken a close look to see what’s been happening – or rather not happening.

Well, I did yesterday. It ain’t pretty.

I bought a new book about using eBay classified ads to sell products and build a list. I’m not done with it, so I won’t review it here yet, but it did get me looking at eBay Pulse to see what information products are being sold. I searched completed listings and found ebooks that had been sold for pennies – with free shipping.

Excuse me. If you are complying with eBays rules prohibiting digital delivery, how can you be selling a CD and mailing it and making money from it all for a total sale of $.20? Hmmm, I don’t believe that can be done, do you?

Looking at the listings, I found several that flat out said they’d email the link for the book, lots that offered free shipping for “pick-up” and many that didn’t specify anything other than that you need Adobe to open and read the file.

Looks like eBay doesn’t really give a rat whether sellers are defying the digital delivery ban. This after ruining/sending away a number of vendors, causing a lot of worry and angst as the rest of us tried to figure out how we could change our businesses to be in compliance and still make a few cents.

I’m not sure what to do about this except to continue trying to find other ways to make money. I do think classified ads for products that can’t be sold for a few cents is one possibility, and I’ll be giving a review of the new book I bought in a few days.

In the meantime, I’ll be pulling a lot of my listings from my store and saving some pennies.

More later. Be well.

I’ve been working on other projects and shamefully ignoring this blog. I guess because I’ve named it eBay Diaries, I tend to overlook it when there’s so little going on at eBay, at least where my business is involved.

Sales are slow, probably understandable with the economy in the shape it is, although there have been spurts of business. I thought the ebooks about making money online might become more popular, but not so. I just took a quick look at completed listings using the “make money” search term, and there weren’t very many sales.

I confess that I’ve not been paying much attention to my eBay biz. As I mentioned last time, I’ve decided it’s a very good idea to try to develop other sources of income. So, I’m working at building small niche sites, adsense and Clickbank sites, with the hope that they’ll generate regular revenue streams, even though they may be small revenue streams. The key is to have a lot of sites, so I’m working at getting a lot of articles. I’m actually finally being forced to look at and organize the gajillion or so article packs I’ve accumulated, as well as all the private label rights books.

I am so far staying away from the internet marketing niche, so that eliminates a ton of the stuff I’ve accumulated, but I have found some useful information in my collections, especially for the natural healing site, and I’m finding that I have lots and lots of the same packs. I’m rewriting some and tossing a whole lot more.

Since my last post I’ve also had some small success with Kindle listings. I’ve only made a few dollars, but then I only have a few listings. I am rereading my Kindle Profits book; I do think Kindle is a good place to put some priority. Amazon is pushing the newest Kindle, and the owners are buying books. I am paying attention to getting the index done right; I’ve seen a few negative comments about messed up or non-existent indexes or tables of content. It takes a bit more effort, but this is a do-it-once and you’re done kind of deal, so worth it.

I’m going back to my article packs and sorting. It’s tedious but has to be done. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of junk. But then when I get to a point of thinking all I have is junk, I find a jewel. So it goes.

Be well and just keep plugging away.