CCP is ramping up the focus on its cash shop thanks to a new dev blog examining EVE Online’s ship SKIN system. Ship skins are purchased in CCP’s item mall and may be bought or sold for ISK on the in-game market prior to activation.
SKINs are used by activating them on a character, which then grants that character permanent access to the SKINs that persists through ship and pod loss. CCP is also adding time-limited SKINs as drops to EVE Online, but currently has no plans to sell them for real money.
[Source: Dev blog]