Great News for Template Designers Regarding Digital Downloads!

Anyone who sells items that can be sent by email or delivered through eBay/Paypal’s download service has certainly had a rough week.  eBay announced earlier this week that sellers of digital goods would no longer be able to list those items in auction format.  Sellers of digital goods would be required to list their wares in the classified ad format that costs $9.95 per ad and doesn’t receive any on eBay feedback for the transactions (since they would all be completed off eBay).

The main reasoning for this rules change was stated as FEEDBACK MANIPULATION.  Many of the digital downloads are easily replicated and any seller could quickly generate thousands of listings and pump up their feedback.  Unfortunately all goods that can be “shipped” digitally do not fall in this category of items, eBay listing templates and store templates come to mind.

Yesterday, Brian Burke answered some of the biggest questions about the new requirements for digital downloads on the eBay Chatter blog.  Probably the best news from this blog post was that Brian says that custom services like auction template designs and store designs do NOT fall under these new guidelines for digital downloads. 

This is because website designs are considered custom services because the buyer and seller work together to design and implement the template.  He did say that a Single template page even if you could customize the color or “insert your name here”, would not be considered custom services and would be required to be listed in the Classified Ads format.

The eBay template designers are not out of the woods yet!  It remains to be seen if the automated software processes eBay has in place will recognize that the listing is for custom work and is ok to list.  Not to mention if T&S would “automatically” cancel a legal listing should it be reported by an eBay user.

Chuck

I logged into my Vendio account today to find a message from Vendio alerting sellers that this Monday eBay will be expanding support for Paypal Payment Reviews on eBay transactions. Vendio states that now more eBay payments made through Paypal will be reviewed to determine if they are high risk (Vendio is estimating the total will be well under 10%). If Paypal determines a payment is high risk they will place a hold on the funds and notify the seller not to ship while they review the payment.

Reading the Paypal link containing the information, Paypal states that the seller will be notified “within minutes” of payment via email, as well as flags put in your Account Overview and History Pages. I would recommend not relying on email and check your Paypal account throughout the day for these “flags” or even delaying shipment by a day on high value items.

Click here to read the Paypal information on Payment Review.

Cyn

Yesterday Kristina Klausen from eBay’s Shipping Team announced that starting this week eBay will begin requiring all new sellers who are listing for the first time to specify their shipping costs using the Shipping Details section. By the time eBay Live arrives specified shipping costs will be required in most listings on eBay. Click here to read the full announcement.

What does this mean for me as a seller?

If you use USPS or UPS then you can take advantage of the eBay Shipping Calculator, if you prefer FedEx or DHL then you will have to enter a flat rate when listing.

Flat rate shipping doesn’t have to be as bad as it sounds. You do not have to charge shipping to zone 8 for all orders no matter how close they are. What you want to do is determine what shipping amount will cover most of your shipments. The best way to arrive at this number is to pull a list of all your orders from the previous month, quarter or even the last year. The more data the better.

With this data you should be able to determine what your average shipping cost was as well as other interesting metrics like what percentage of your orders are only traveling a short distance and which ones are traveling further. Your goal should be to at least cover shipping on all orders and maybe have a little profit built in should the rates or surcharges increase.

Probably the best benefit of Flat Rate S&H that I can think of is while all the other sellers are scrambling to change their S&H on thousands of listings, your S&H doesn’t have to be changed. We experienced this back in 2006 when the USPS changed their rates. While many sellers were frantically changing the S&H in their listings, we continued to list and sell additional product.

As a seller I believe it creates a good buying experience if we provide the potential buyer with a shipping quote upfront and in the actual search if possible. This change will not affect our business because we already do this. However, I am concerned for other sellers because the eBay shipping calculator can be buggy at times and doesn’t support all the carriers. It would be easier for everyone to swallow if eBay would have added the functionality for all major carriers to the shipping calculator.

Chuck

Wouldn’t it be nice to be automatically notified when your website has a new page indexed in Google, or when someone links to your site? Well this is very easy to do using the Google Alerts Beta! Here are the instructions for setting up a site wide Google index update Alert and a site wide link alert.

Create an alert for when a page on your site gets indexed:

1. Go to www.google.com/alerts.
2. For search terms enter (without quotes) “site:yourdomain.com”.
   1. Make sure you do not use a www or other subdomain.
3. Select Web as the type.
4. For “How often” we will select “as-it-happens”. I like this because this tells you exactly when Google is crawling your site!
5. Enter the email you want the alert sent to.
6. Click “Create Alert”.
7. Confirm the alert from the email Google send you and you are set!

Create an alert that notifies you when another website links to your website:

1. Go to www.google.com/alerts.
2. For search terms enter (without quotes) “link:yourdomain.com”.
   1. Make sure you do not use a www or other subdomain.
3. Select Comprehensive as the type. This will allow you to be notified with links in Blogs and groups as well as other websites in general.
4. For “How often” we will select “once a week”. If you start noticing a lot of entries you can go to the once a day and then as-it-happens settings.
5. Enter the email you want the alert sent to.
6. Click “Create Alert”.
7. Confirm the alert from the email Google send you and you are set!

Now you will know WHO is linking to you and WHEN!

Chuck

Mompreneur: A Mom who is also an Entrepreneur.

How did I get here…where do I go from here?

When I left the “real” work place 16 years ago, I never dreamed I would be doing what I am today. I left because we had a 1 ½ year old, and then twins. Yes, life was very crazy in our household, and we had always planned on me being a Stay at Home Mom. But 1 question always irritated me? “Do you work?” Of course I learned to correct those people, and said “You mean, do I work outside of the house?” ;-) Being a Mom was my passion, and I worked very hard at it…and still do.

Flash forward years later, and a daughter desperately wanting Santa to bring her the Barbie VW Bug car…in pink. All of the stores were sold out, and I turned to eBay. I found one, and paid more than they were selling for in the stores. But the look on her face Christmas morning…priceless! From that point on I was hooked on the idea of online buying and selling. I started with items I had from my closet, with tags still on. Still don’t know how those extra clothes got there LOL People liked what I sold, & I liked earning a little money to help the household income.

The next 4 years I dabbled in other products and subsequently opened a store, had a custom template made and got a little more serious. The last 2 years I got even more serious and opened up a website, and branched onto Amazon as well. While the learning process can be frustrating, it is also exhilarating! I love thinking outside the box, and communicating with others who are in similar situations. I love the flexibility that things are done on my time, and I can walk away from the office anytime I want. Although with laptops, the office seems to be with me more often than not. I have so far resisted the urge for a Blackberry

The one constant throughout these year is putting my family first. Whoever came up with the name Mompreneur sure had the order of words right for me. I occasionally still get asked “Do you work?” or “Where do you work”. I tell them I work from home, and if I feel the need, I further explain what I do. Yes, our kids are much older, and one is able to drive himself. But knowing I can drop everything and be there for them is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Knowing how much I have accomplished while multi-tasking for 16 years is a great feeling of pride. And seeing how much my family appreciates me as a Mom, and how cool they think my business stuff is…priceless.

Proud Momprenuer:

Lanae Paaverud

eBay announced today a new checkout flow for Paypal payments.  The response from the community has not been positive as it apparently leaves their Paypal account open at the end, among other glitches.  There are also reports of the order showing the shipping for each item, rather than one shipping charge for the entire order.

 You can read the official eBay announcement here.

Reviewing the screenshots posted by Paypal on the Checkout Forum I am happy to see on the checkout page an explanation of what an echeck is, with an estimated clearing date, and a note that it may delay shipping.  However, there have been problems reported with trying to use other funding methods and being automatically moved to an echeck instead.

This is interesting since I have received an unusual number of echecks today.  I wonder if the new checkout has anything to do with it?  Has Paypal found another way to force buyers to use their bank accounts rather than credit cards, thereby saving Paypal money?

Some buyers are unhappy with the new automatic default to Pay Multiple Sellers.  This may delay payment from buyers as they wait for other auctions to end so they can pay all sellers at once.

Other buyers are reporting changing their funding method to credit card and not being able to proceed with payment.

Another change eBay is rolling out full of bugs.

Click here to read the eBay Checkout board and Paypal’s explanation.

Cyn