(E/m)^-2 =

In my eBay Bans Digital Items post, I promised to deliver a reasonable work-around to the many eBay sellers effected by that nasty policy change. As of now, I've got something that might do the trick... But first a word of caution: I'm not entirely certain that my methods comply with eBay's listing policies or not, because eBay is exceptionally unclear about what the new rules entail. In fact, I don't believe they know either, as they seem to be making them up, changing the goalposts, as they go. Meanwhile, please accept this as a solution in principle only; some fodder for the mix. As I said, I'm not 100% certain that what I am doing is acceptable to the eBay Gods or not. ***UPDATE***** In the comments section, I've been told that Pay Now buttons are forbidden; you can read my thoughts here. My solution involves the following key points: Post multiple auction items as usual -offering to deliver your electronic items on CD. In the listing, invite viewers to see all your items in your eBay store rather than wait for the CD in snail-mail. You can't say, "go here to get a digital download" but you are free to cross promote other items and your eBay store within the body of any auction item.

1. Create a classified ad: The price is arbitrary, but eBay requires you to assign one. I'm not sure why, because a classified ad can be used to advertise anything -not just items for sale. I guess setting the price to the cost of the lowest item you plan to sell is reasonable. e.g., kind of like $5.95 (and up)
2. Create a Promotions box to display only your class ad.
3. In your eBay store, create a custom page to display a Promotions box you created above.
4. Assign the custom page to be your home page.

The classified ad acts like your eBay store's digital download section -you can put as many buy now buttons or links to a website off-eBay. I had an additional problem because class ads aren't available on eBay.ca. To work around this, I have a two promo box home page -the class ad one is empty outside eBay.com so the box is invisible. In the second box, I just have a text link -see all my items on eBay.com This way, visitors will be directed to my store on eBay.com, then they'll see the class ad. By creating an Instant Download category in my store, I really pushed the envelope. This is not really required, but that's where I listed my class ad, and I did it for testing purposes only. Anyway, visit eBay.com and search for the example auction item here to see for yourself. While you're here, checkout the YouTube videos below: Some are pretty good. The menu button allows you to preview and choose different videos. Please post your feedback!