What are electronically delivered goods?
Electronically delivered goods (also known as digitally delivered items) are products that exist in a digital format and can be delivered to customers via email or a download link. Examples of such goods include music files, software, digital art, electronic books, video files, training materials, electronic tickets, and PDF files with original content.
Due to the nature of electronically delivered goods, eBay takes extra care to prevent intellectual property infringement and minimize risks for buyers. That’s why eBay has introduced its Electronically delivered items policy.
3 ways to sell digital products on eBay
According to this policy, you can sell digital products on eBay as follows:
1. List electronically delivered items only in the Everything Else > Information Products category of the Classified Ad format.
The eBay Classified Ad format removes eBay from the transaction. The marketplace acts only as a lead generator, and the sale and delivery are negotiated between you and the buyer directly. The transaction is finalized outside of the eBay platform. Please note: eBay Money Back Guarantee does not cover listings in the Classified Ad format.
When you list an item in the Classified Ads format, the insertion fee is $9.95 for a 30-day listing, but there aren’t any final value fees.
To select this type of listing, open the Sell Your Item form, find the Pricing section, open the dropdown menu, and select Classified Ad instead of Buy It Now or Auction.
Then browse categories to find the Everything Else category and Information Products subcategory.
2. Sell a physical item (a CD or thumb drive) with a digital file
You can sell digital files via auctions or Buy It Now listings when you deliver the file on a disk or a thumb drive. List the item in the category that best describes the item and provide a valid shipping method.
Electronically delivered items that are not allowed on eBay, include:
- Software keys the seller is not authorized to sell
- Digital copies or codes of movies that were included as part of purchasing a physical movie item. The seller needs to include the physical disk with the sale of the digital copy or code
3. Become an eBay approved seller of digital products (on ebay.com for US registered users only)
To become an approved seller, you need to:
- be a registered eBay user in good standing
- have a registered address in the US
- have a valid eBay selling account
These conditions apply to ebay.com only. If you want to list digital items on eBay international sites, other conditions may apply. Please read the Electronically delivered items policy of the corresponding site.
Key terms and conditions for eBay approved sellers:
Electronically delivered items policy of international eBay sites
Key takeaways
To sell digitally delivered items, you need to either become an eBay approved seller of digital products or list your products in the Everything Else > Information Products category of the Classified Ad format. Any violations of eBay’s policy may result in eBay taking action such as removing the listing or other content, issuing a warning, restricting the seller’s activity or suspending their account.
However, if you sell a physical item (a disk or a thumb drive) with a digital file, you can create a regular Buy It Now or Auction-style listing. But the physical item must be shipped to the buyer via a valid shipping method.
Any activity that doesn’t follow eBay policies could result in a range of actions such as canceling your listings, demoting them from search results, lowering seller rating and imposing account restrictions. If a listing is removed for violation and you relist it again, your account may be suspended.
For more information, please read the full text of the Electronically delivered items policy.