The rest of your post does make for interesting reading though.

I have a solution for all of you that are selling downloadable products:

http://www.wightauction.co.uk/?nrs2=100198

This is an auction site based in the United Kingdom. I sell on this auction, ebay and some other auctions to get maximum views.

How was ebay made so big? WE made them big. I sell on ebay through Auctiva (free listing service). I got their newsletter and this was one of the questions asked ebay’s CEO and his answer:

Ask the CEO: Does eBay Want to Eliminate Small Sellers?
Auctiva boss Jeff Schlicht answers this and other of your questions.
by Auctiva.com staff writer - Oct 10, 2008

Q: Is there any truth to the rumors that eBay wants to eliminate the small sellers and go to a Wal-Mart-type retail model?

Schlicht: Yes, and no. I don’t think eBay ever wants to be a retailer that competes directly with sellers the way Amazon does. eBay’s offering a Diamond tier for sellers with sales of more than $500,000 or 50,000 items a month in an effort to compete with Amazon and attempt to bring more buyer traffic back to the site. Diamond-tier sellers must maintain a 4.8 DSR rating or higher, among several other requirements. Currently, the only Diamond-tier seller is Buy.com, (user id: buy). Here’s some sales data for Buy from the past 30 days, as of October 5th. Total Sales $2,948,389
Total Listings 1,113,272
Successful Listings 59,998
Total Bids 96,314
Items Offered 73,066,278
Items Sold 96,314
Bids per Listing 0.09
Sell-Through 5.39%

As you can see, buy has listed more than 1 million listings with only a 5 percent sell-through rate. That would put most sellers out of business. However since Diamond-tier sellers get to negotiate their fees, it’s widely speculated that Buy pays no listing fees and discounted final value fees.

It’s said that there are 10 or more other such companies waiting to come join the Diamond tier this holiday shopping season. The impact of these sellers on the marketplace remains to be seen. It could add vibrancy and more buyers to the site by offering a wider selection and good prices. Or it could flood the site with merchandise, making it more difficult to find items, especially those from the smaller sellers. At a minimum, it will be more difficult for smaller sellers to compete toe-to-toe on the exact items listed by Diamond-tier sellers given the discounts they receive.

This should tell you something. What will happen to the people that aren’t in the ‘elite’ group? You tell me!

jane

Cheers………..Pat

Pete: The items I was selling were the same ones I’ve always sold. Crockpot recipes, crochet patterns, cheesecake recipes etc etc. I have resell rights for each one. I have my own listing template to make them stand out from the others. The salespage text may be the same as others but thats only because most of the items I sell come with salespages. So as you can see nothing broke any of eBays rules. I certainly didn’t have any ‘Copyright Violations’ as eBay called them.

Srinivasan: I know exactly how you feel! What is worse is eBay do not tell you why they feel your item broke ‘copyright violation’. This is the maddening part for me.

Brian: I do actually have another eBay account (or the family does) but I was loath to admit it in case someone targets that one as well. The other account doesnt have any where near the same feedback though. I did list some items on it immediately and made some sales but nowhere near what my personal account was doing. It is a great tip though.

Sally: thanks for those kind words. You have some great websites under your belt. WeavingWithBlogs looks excellent and I’ve signed up for your newsletter at survivingebay.com as well.

Richard

I put together a 30+ page eBook plus 60+ video series called “Weaving With Blogs All The Way To The Bank”. You can read more about it at: http://www.WeavingWithBlogs.com.

You need a blog, an eCommerce site for your disks and a regular website, along with selling on eBay and Amazon. Amazon will put your item on CD or DVD, burn it, package it and ship it for you. A great program.

Take a look at my site SurvivingEbay.com to help you solve this problem - and you are right - stay with eBay - but, don’t count on them for 80% of your sales.

I hope this all works out for you. I am a big fan of yours and have included numerous screenshots of your site and eBay store in my videos as an example of how a smart seller operates. Good luck and keep me posted.

Sally

I can only imagine how this must feel; the worse I had is a listing cancelled without warning ot notice.

Even though I am now mainly using eBay for lead gathering, I’m actually not enjoying it as much as I used to and I don’t think it’s worth the effort (although classifieds might be better). I’m even thinking of dropping it for business purposes as I have better things to do now.

At a personal level its great - sold a couple of very expensive mobiles phones with great success.

I left ebay in March folowing their changes but have been thinking of starting over again, so will be getiing your recommendation -
Reseller Brainstorm, before finally decicing yea or nea.

What would be very useful (to me) is if you could be a bit more specific as to what you were actually selling and, how that led to your suspension. Was the sales page classified as ’stealing’ someone elses product or ‘plagarism or suchlike.

In the meantime. keep your chin up budddy and I hope that you and your family are keeping well.

Take every care and I am lifting a glass of wine to your continued success….

You can’t keep a good man down and your still one of the best around

Pete