The ecommerce landscape is constantly changing, and in 2023 it will be interesting to see how Amazon and eBay compare as selling platforms.
Sellers Amazon is quickly growing into a marketplace for big brands and professional sellers. eBay also has some established names as sellers but in comparison to Amazon, the top sellers are relatively unknown, or less popular brands. That is why small sellers feel that they stand out more on eBay.
For sellers who are trying to decide which platform to use, it’s important to understand the pros and cons of each. Here’s a look at how Amazon and eBay stack up against each other in key areas.
Is it Better to Sell on eBay or Amazon?
Amazon and eBay are the world’s top online marketplaces. Deciding between them can be difficult.
eBay began as an online auction site. Later, it evolved into a marketplace, like Amazon. On eBay, sellers can list their items at a fixed price and open their own “store.” eBay’s marketplace has its advantages, selling online will most likely increase the sales.
Amazon’s marketplace allows you to choose the type of seller you want to be. If you’re planning to supplement your retail store or starting out small, Amazon’s Individual Seller plan might be a good place to start. However, if you plan to sell more than 40 individual items each month or wish to work with Amazon as a wholesaler, their Professional Seller, or Amazon Vendor account could be the better option.
So would platform should you choose?
The Answer: It Depends!
Why Sell On Amazon?
There are hardly a few people in this world that might not have heard of Amazon. Founded in the year 1994, Amazon has drastically grown in the e-commerce world. In fact, it has even surpassed Walmart and has become America’s most-valued retailer.
Name a category and Amazon has corresponding products featuring it. Its mission is to become the world’s customer-centric company and help customers find and unveil anything that they want to buy online.
With an incredible valuation of $50+ billion and stronger growth, Amazon does not show any signs of dropping. But in certain ways, they are not even close to eBay’s popularity.
Why Sell On eBay?
On the other hand, eBay is in the e-commerce game for many years and has even pioneered the 3rd party business model well ahead of Amazon.
It hosts both fixed-price and live-auction items in 36+ countries and prides itself in “enabling economic opportunities across the world.”
Even though it might appear as if Amazon has outshone eBay, both are successful in various ways.
Amazon FBA or eBay: Which Marketplace Costs More?
Every new business considers the fee that will be charged to get them started.
Amazon’s fee structure is pretty simple:
Professional plan: Lets you sell more than 40 products for a monthly fee $39.99 + other fees for selling (usually a commission that Amazon takes for the type of product that you sell. This will vary.)
Individual plan: Lets you sell less than 40 products for $0.99 per month + other fees for selling. You can read this detailed guide to learn more about amazon individual seller plan.
You can find the full detailed amazon fee guide here for more detailed fee structure and types of fees, and try SellerApp free FBA revenue calculator to calculate seller fulfillment fees & profits.
EBay’s fee plan is a not as straightforward as Amazon:
It includes an insertion fee for every listing.
It has a feature fee if you use subtitles to attract buyers.
It charges a final value fee whenever an item is sold.
It involves separate shipping cost for services and goods.
If you set up an eBay store, you get an allowance for monthly listings. Listings per month eBay sellers enjoy posting 200 free listings per month. They still pay for commission fees after making a sale, but the initial 200 listings don’t require a fee to post a listing.
Insertion fees charged after free listing quota is met After surpassing the free listing quota, eBay sellers pay a per-listing fee to make the listing live. Insertion fees generally cost $0.35 per listing depending on category. So eBay fees actually haven’t increased much.
eBay charges fees separately from sale Unlike where Amazon directly deducts its fees from your sale and then deposits the profits into your account, eBay calculates your ebay selling fees and then charges it to your seller account.
Which is better for sellers?
Amazon eBay
Fetaures FBA and Prime No such features available
Great for launching new products Great for second-hand products
Gives complete freedom Has lots of restrictions
Opportunity to build your own brand PayPal is required
No PayPal required Decent support
Enhanced suppport Cheap but requires time to establish
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace is easier to sell internationally?
Despite Amazon’s slow growth, eBay has a larger presence internationally. This makes selling a product on Ebay a lot simpler than selling on Amazon.
Amazon provides services to 15 markets across the world in North America, Asia and Europe. In addition, Ebay is also a multi-platform retailer and serves more than 200 countries.
Ebay is incredibly simple – It is easy to register to sell in the world of eBay. For Amazon, sellers must have separate websites for each marketplace they are selling. The management and reporting of feedback are separately regulated by each business.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace is easier to manage?
Amazon’ s online marketplace makes selling on eBay far simpler, faster, easier & faster. The Amazon FBA allows Amazon to fulfill orders with the simple click of an email or phone to sell your goods and then pay for them with cash. Amazon manages the shipment, fulfillment and support, and is rarely involved with the customer.
During a selling session on eBay, the buyer must wait until payment. Sometimes the customer won’t pay attention to the transaction so it can be relisted online. Then, it’s physical delivery of the products.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace has more product restrictions?
Amazon has been more restricted on its products than on Ebay in the past. Amazon explains how it has to obtain multiple approvals from a Chinese buyer to sell its items. You don’t just need UPC codes to list items on Amazon. But Amazon also limits the types of products you can only list to applications. Sometimes you need to tell Amazon what your supplier is offering for a sale.
However, eBay is lenient. Because most Ebay sellers sell randomly generated knick-knack products, there’s no product ID like the U.S. Identifier code.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace requires more customer support?
Customer service is a whole lot simpler at Amazon than at eBay. If I could describe a normal Amazon consumer in two words, I would choose loyalty and value-oriented. As I’ve said before, 44.7 percent of people start shopping online using Amazon. Approximately 60% of all customers starting online from other websites have checked Amazon before making their final purchase. Approximately 60% of US household members have Amazon Prime. They pay an annual fee as a reward for free movies and entertainment.
In my experience, Ebay customers expect to pay less for their goods because of Ebay’s auction model. Whenever I shop on Ebay, I’m often watching many identical items at the same time in hopes of swiping an auction at the cheapest price possible. For eBay shoppers, it’s price first , followed by service and quality. As a result, you are much more likely to encounter super cheap customers on Ebay who will try to haggle with you even after an auction is completed.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which has less seller competition?
Amazon and eBay have selectively disclosed the personal information of sellers.
Amazon reported that the company currently has about 200,000 buyers generating revenues above $50,000. 50,000 sellers have sales exceeding $50000. In 2020, sales of 27,000 units reached $500m, while those selling over $1M grew by nearly 15%.
Amazon is a more aggressive seller than eBay. It’s also more competitive. The competition for advertisements has also significantly decreased on eBay, making it incredibly cheap.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace is bigger?
Amazon has a total of 46x as much sales volume as eBay. On its own, it accounted for 13.7% of the global eCommerce retail market in 2019. As of 2020, Amazon’s sales had reached $476.22 billion, and Ebay had just 10.4 billion.
This is largely a distorted number since it includes the Amazon website that accounts for around 10% of its sales. In the end, Amazon is the best seller of e-commerce. A comparison with Amazon revenue is over 300%. The company has around 306 billion customers, and Ebay is only 170. Now on surface it seems Amazon has a 2X larger client count than Ebay.
Amazon Vs Ebay: Which marketplace is easier to ship items with eBay or Amazon?
The biggest difference between ebay and Amazon could be the fact that Amazon offers Fulfilled by Amazon (or FBA).
Amazon FBA – The seller ships the goods directly to Amazon for fulfillment. This saves much time. The buyer has the responsibility for the shipment to the originating and destination countries. Sellers from Seattle may ship items to Florida. It sometimes sounds unpractical or costly. Most sellers have paid less to send products as Amazon offers a much lower discount.
The reality is eBay couldn’t compete with Amazon’s FBA service in terms of scale and speed. This does make sense, since, as we’ve mentioned, eBay is just not the same animal as Amazon. Therefore, most eBay sellers who don’t wish to fulfill orders themselves (in FBM fashion) often use 3PLs (third-party logistics) to handle the fulfillment/shipping side instead.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace is better for establishing a brand?
Ebay has more options to list products vs Amazon because it provides more flexible listing options. Often Amazon takes care to ensure it holds the entire customers.
When you make sales, most of the customer details remain anonymous. Amazon has also threatened to conceal your customer’s addresses and names in an effort to prevent unauthorized searches.
In addition, Amazon demands your listing of products with a rigid structure, which effectively hides your brand identity.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace is more friendly to sellers?
When deciding between Amazon and eBay as a marketplace to sell goods, one question that is often asked is which one is more “seller friendly”? While it can be said that both sites offer various perks for those looking to make some money by selling items, it appears that Amazon definitely leans more towards being accommodating for the seller.
They not only offer more options for pricing structure and payment methods, but have also recently implemented strategies to help keep sellers competitive in the marketplace—something eBay has yet to do.
With both ease and protection of the seller in mind, Amazon would certainly be the logical choice for anyone wanting to bring their business into the world of digital commerce.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace has lower advertising fees?
Amazon and eBay have increasingly become payment-based marketplaces. Usually this requires payment in order for your site to be found. In fact, Amazon sellers have much more marketing than the eBay sellers. In 2018, we evaluated a number of highly specialized retailers that had sales accounts of 26.7% to 6.6%.
Amazon Advertising is a major threat that will negatively affect your Amazon business. Both Amazon and eBay are increasingly becoming pay-to-play marketplaces. This means that often you need to pay to have your listings appear at the top of search results.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace has better refunds and returns?
When it comes to refunds and returns, both Amazon and eBay have their advantages. For third party sellers on Amazon, the brand’s flexible return policy gives customers plenty of options when they wish to get a refund or make an exchange.
When you are shopping on eBay, the refund rules largely depend on third-party sellers since eBay acts as a platform where buyers and third party sellers come together to conduct transactions. Though eBay does not have a uniform return policy, third-party sellers must abide with their own set of conditions when it comes to returns.
Ultimately, each seller’s return policies need to be assessed on an individual basis before shoppers decide which marketplace suits them better for refunds and returns.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace is selling safer?
Selling online can be a daunting endeavor, with safety being an important factor to consider when deciding where you want to do your business.
Amazon and eBay are both reliable marketplaces, but there is a clear choice: Amazon seller benefits from greater protection when it comes to payment processing, delivery, authenticity and customer service disputes. Amazon’s streamlined process fits perfectly with its legendary customer satisfaction policy and offers safety for both buyers and sellers.
Meanwhile, eBay does not always provide the same level of assurance for third party transactions. So if you want peace of mind that your products are secure and profits are protected, then Amazon is the more reliable option.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace is better of product promotions?
When it comes to deciding which marketplace is better for product promotions, the answer isn’t quite so simple. Amazon and eBay have their own unique advantages that make each platform suitable for different types of products.
On the one hand, Amazon is known for its huge customer base and easy checkout process that can boost the sales of many products quickly.
On the other hand, eBay provides customers with an experience tailored to their interests by recommending products that match their preferences. Because of this, some sellers prefer to focus their promotions on eBay rather than Amazon.
Ultimately, determining which marketplace is better for product promotion comes down to what type of product you’re selling and who your target audience might be.
Amazon vs eBay: Which marketplace is better of feedback system?
When deciding to sell products online, one of the most important factors to consider is the feedback system. Amazon and eBay are two popular marketplaces that offer a range of features to both buyers and sellers. While each platform provides helpful feedback tools, there are marked differences between Amazon and eBay in how their feedback systems operate.
Amazon is well known for its fast responses and customer service as well as its seller ranking system which provides shoppers with an instant understanding of seller performance.
eBay’s rating system has many more user-facing features, such as the ability to leave detailed comments on purchases. However, because it does not feature an average score for sellers, it can be harder for users to find trustworthy companies quickly.
Ultimately, either Amazon or eBay could prove to be the right choice depending on a seller’s individual preferences and goals.
Summary: Pros and Cons Of Selling On Amazon Vs Ebay
Pros of Selling on eBay:
1. 200 free listings per month.
2. Insertion fees are generally $0.35 per listing depending on category.
3. Separate fees for each sale and buyer pays for shipping and handling costs.
Cons of Selling on eBay:
1. Fees can add up quickly if you exceed your free listing quota.
2. Can be more difficult to build brand recognition since the marketplace is so competitive.
Pros of Selling on Amazon:
1. Amazon FBA program simplifies shipping and customer service for sellers.
2. Reach a larger customer base with over 300 million active users.
3. Amazon provides more detailed analytics to help sellers improve their performance.
Cons of Selling on Amazon:
1. More expensive fees than eBay as Amazon deducts fees directly from the sale price.
2. Must compete with big-name brands and companies in order to be successful on the platform.
3. Amazon has strict requirements for product quality and customer reviews, making it difficult to stay compliant.
Other Channels Outside of eBay & Amazon
There are other channels to sell your products on. You can see our full summary of other sales channels here. The best channels to consider are:
Walmart.com
Shopify/Your own website
Houzz
Etsy
Once you’ve maxed out eBay and Amazon’s potential, the next logical channel is to start selling on your own website (and most people will do this through Shopify). In fact, your own website will support your sales on eBay and Amazon so it’s best to launch your website concurrently with selling on eBay and Amazon.
If you’re selling any home-related products, Houzz can be an amazing channel. It’s not uncommon for a seller in a niche like home decor to get 25 to 50% of their sales through Houzz. If you’re not selling a home-related product though, Houzz will be of little use to you. Etsy is similar to Houzz if you’re selling anything homemade or craft-related.
Finally, Walmart has been improving its e-commerce strategies over the past years. It has even started allowing non-US sellers into its platform. It definitely has a stronger online presence now and with millions of dollars invested in improving its logistics, it may even become a bigger threat to Amazon than eBay is.
Frequently Asked Questions About Amazon Vs eBay selling
Is selling on eBay difficult?
Selling on eBay is actually quite easy. You can create an account, list what you want to sell and sell it, all in the same day.
Who pays for shipping on eBay?
It is standard that the buyer pays for shipping after they have purchased the product.
Does Amazon sell used items?
Amazon does allow the sale of used items but the visibility for used items is far less than new ones. As a result, Amazon is not the best place to sell used goods.
Can I sell on eBay without Paypal?
While Paypal is the default payment method, there are other payment alternatives like wire transfers and money orders for certain listing categories. You can also elect to use your own merchant account and payment gateway.
Conclusion
Selling on eBay or Amazon can be beneficial for sellers depending on the situation. eBay offers 200 free listings per month and insertion fees are generally cheaper than those of Amazon. However, competing with big-name brands can make it more difficult to be successful on the platform. Amazon, on the other hand, offers a larger customer base and simplifies shipping and customer service for sellers but also requires higher fees as well as strict requirements for product quality and customer reviews. Ultimately, it’s up to each seller to decide which platform will best suit their needs.
