1p ebooks

spalding

It puzzles me ther are loads of people selling ebooks etc for 1p how do these people make money surely everyone they sell they lose money listing fees paypal fees etc? Or am I missing something?

It can't all be about feedback as lots have good feedback already?

StaffsSW

It's mainly email harvesting and back end sales. If you buy a 1p ebook about making money online, it will contain links to other schemes and plans that require a subscription membership, and you will receive regular emails on offers that you can sign up to or buy.

The cost of these listings is minimal - 9p in a shop format with gallery, and with regards fees, the FVF eats the 1p sale down to .75p, and then paypal will take all of what remains - contrary to popular belief, the seller does not make a 20p loss on each sale in paypal fees. There is also the fact that they bolster the sellers' DSR star ratings - most buyers will leave four 5* ratings for nothing.

From a buyers perspectve though, it is predominantly feedback building - if you buy one of these, mark it as payment sent, then leave feedback straight away - you will get one in return. It's common for scammers to buy up dozens of these to build a feedback score, then start selling high value items on the back of a "good" feedback rating.

It's all subterfuge in one way or another.

Tirian

Presumably this is one of eBay's unmentioned motivations for removing the ability to leave feedback for buyers - expect to see sales of all those ebooks plummet!

And, of course, it will be impossible for a new seller to masquerade as anything else, since they will have zero feedback until they've sold something.

Of course, it also means that as a seller you will have no idea whether the person buying from you is a newbie buyer or whether they've bought a thousand other items beforehand.

StaffsSW

It's only negatives and neutrals that are being stopped, buyers will only be able to receive positives, so the scammers will still be able to "buy" a few dozen good feedbacks, then launch a selling scam.