Not only is it a great way to expose your music to new fans, selling digital music via Ebay is also almost totally automated. There is no upfront cost for the services you'll need to do this, and all fees you'll pay will be based on a percentage of sales.
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it...
What you'll need:
1. Ebay Account
2. Paypal Business/Premiere Level Account
3. Payloadz Account
Step-by-Step Process:
I'm going to assume you already know how to fill in the forms to get your accounts at Ebay, Paypal, and Payloadz setup. Note that your Ebay, Paypal, and Payloads email address need to be the same.
And once you've done that...
1. Log in to your Payloadz account, look under "account" (at the top), and get the URL of your "IPN Link." It will look something like
http://www.payloadz.com/pay/index.asp?Id=xxxxx.
2. Visit your "Instant Payment Notification Preferences" at Paypal. It needs to be set to ON and you'll add the URL that you received in step one.
That's it for Paypal...
3. Visit Payloadz and upload the product you want to sell. Make sure the title also works for the auction you want to list, as this will need to be an exact match for Payloadz to deliver your goods instantly. Copy this item name into your clipboard.
4. Log into Ebay and create a listing. The listing title needs to be what's in your clipboard, assuming you followed step 3 and have the Payloadz item you want to sell in there.
If not, you can type out the action title, but make sure it's exactly the same as name of the Payloadz item you want to sell.
6. Specify your auction as a digital item and fill out the information requested. File format, operating system, required software, etc.
7. You want to sell your item instantly and you don't want the auction to end as soon as one is sold, so the auction should be fixed price and the quantity of items should be more than one. To do this, set the payment option to "require immediate payment via Paypal" and set the quantity so that it won't run out.
8.
http://payloadz.com/d1/lookup.asp is your file delivery location.
9. Submit the listing.
If all goes well, and it should, your auction will appear within a couple of minutes. When somebody buys what you're selling, they'll pay via Paypal, be taken to a page which links the "file delivery location," and be able to look up the order via the auction/payment information. The file will be available via a web page instantly and they'll also get an email which gives the URL of that page, in the event that they missed it the first time around.
As this strategy for selling is almost hands free, it's a great way to add another stream of income to your business as well as add to your mailing list. The hardest part is setting up your listing for the first time. Once that's done, you simply "relist" the action when it's over, and you're back in business.