The eBay digital product policy that went into effect on March 31st, has left me with a few of questions that I have been trying to get answers to.

I haven’t sold on eBay since they made the new policy, and will probably never go back, but I would like answers to my questions.

My two questions are:

Question 1.  I still see websites being sold on eBay auctions.  Are websites not considered digital download products?

So, about a month ago I sent eBay the following question:
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I have a question on your new digital product policy. I know of at least one eBay seller who is selling websites on eBay auctions and BIN.  I thought websites were included in the eBay digital product policy.  The seller does state the following in their FAQs:

“TERMS  – The domain name will be transferred to you through Websitenamewithheld.com once full payment has been received and cleared.  The website will be set up on a hosting server. No scripts will be transferred through email or download links. Once the site has been installed on your server you will have complete access to the site pages to make any changes.”

Since no download-able products are being sent to the customer, is this type of selling of digital products okay?  Can I sell websites as long as I don’t email the customers download links?  Instead I would provide the service of setting the sites up for the customer.

I look forward to your reply,
Mike Gates
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A few days ago I finally received the answer from eBay:

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Thank you for writing eBay in regard to clarification of our Digital Delivered Goods Policy..

Michael, you are permitted to sell Websites on eBay without having them in a Classified Ads Format. We would be happy to review a proposed listing and make sure it complies with eBay policies before you post it.

Here are two ways that we can do this:

- If you have Web hosting, please create an HTML-based listing template and upload it. Then send us the Web link for the template so we can review it.

- Or, reply to this email and paste the proposed title and item description in the body of the email. Please don’t send the information as an attachment. For security reasons, we can’t open attachments.

Thank you for your patience and understanding concerning this matter.

If you have any further questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reply to this email and let us know.
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That response tells me that I can sell websites on eBay, I just need to have them look over my initial listing to make sure I am doing everything correctly, according to their policies.

For me, that opens a whole new set of questions.  Can I sell services that are not digitally delivered on eBay – like website design, or personal graphic design, or any type of consulting.  It appears that to me that I could but only eBay knows for sure (maybe).

Question 2.  If I send my buyers a physical product, like a CD/DVD, can I also email them a download link after the purchase?

Personally, I won’t buy a downloadable type product off of eBay if I can’t get it right away.  I don’t want to wait for a physical product to be sent to me.

I will try to find the same product, or a similar product elsewhere so I can’t get it immediately.

I have yet to get this question answered by eBay.  But I have heard that sellers who also delivered a download link after purchase, in addition to sending a physical product, got in trouble.

So, my guess is if eBay finds out about your emailing a download link, you will get into trouble.

If you have a definitive answer to #2, please let me know.  If you have contradictory information regarding question #1, please let me know.

Mike

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