Author: Perez Clark

Are you a budding eCommerce seller who needs help deciding on the right marketplace to use? If you’re eager to discover the right online market products, this article is for you.

This post will review the differences and market comparisons between the two major e-commerce retailers.

Let’s get started!

Amazon Vs. eBay: The Complete Comparison (2022)

Amazon Vs. eBay; What’s The Difference?

Starting off, let’s examine the chief differences between eBay and Amazon. Unlike eBay, Amazon hosts both third-party sellers and their products. Simply put, Amazon sells products from the company and third-party sellers on the platform. 

eBay, conversely, practices the opposite. Businesses and individual sellers list their offerings either through its fixed-price format or auction option. 

he advantage of this is that you don’t need to worry about competing with eBay’s range of products. Taking away the risk of entering a monopolized market.

Amazon features products from its range along with products from third-party merchants. This means you may find yourself competing against items from Amazon’s product line – Amazon Essentials. Lastly, Amazon operates a fixed-priced-only marketplace, so, unlike eBay, merchants can only sell products at a fixed–price.

So Which Is The Better Pick?

Market Size

Amazon downright has the most significant number of regular shoppers. In 2021, the number of people shopping on the platform made up over 13.5% of the global e-commerce retail market. That figure equates to nearly 40% of the market share in America.

eBay, on the contrary, constitutes only around 4.5% of America’s e-commerce market. While that may seem insignificant compared to Amazon, eBay welcomes over 1.7 Billion shoppers every month. In fact, just after Amazon (41%) and Walmart (7%), eBay falls in third with 4.5%.

The secret behind eBay’s massive monthly user figures is that most shoppers visiting the site are very selective, opting to buy from merchants with the best customer feedback. That shows nurturing an excellent eBay reputation is critical to achieving your business prospects.

Then again, eBay recently rolled out its auction, emphasizing the platform’s pricing-motivated culture. As a result, your average eBay customer is more interested in a product’s security and pricing than the privileges and premiums that come with subscription services like Amazon Prime.

While Amazon dominates, considering the market size, eBay remains a significant player in the e-commerce industry. With millions of customers outside the U.S constituting more than half of its yearly sales revenue.

Competition

eBay provides shoppers various listings for the same product, in line with its auction sale traditions. Items you find will sometimes be new, second-hand, and in proper or wacky conditions, and most of the time, offer varying shipping options.

Also, products receive more visibility on eBay, which translates to buyers having a higher chance of coming across your offering. Vendors can optimize these opportunities by adjusting listings to satisfy the intent of a range of audiences. 

On the other hand, Amazon operates with an item catalog model, where a single listing is provided for each product. So, no matter how many merchants offer the same item, shoppers searching for it will receive what the algorithm deems the best result page.

In addition, more product offerings only appear when the shopper visits the complete product page. This means your product will compete with those of the thousands of sellers aiming to break into the Buy Box. Unfortunately, most customers immediately decide to go with the platform’s Buy Box result.

Finally, when comparing the competitiveness between the two stores, eBay seems like a more favorable market for sellers. Apart from Amazon being a highly-competitive marketplace, sellers should also note they’ll be competing against third-party sellers and Amazon-range products.

Shipping & Fulfillment

The option to participate in FBA (Fulfilled-By-Amazon) is one of the most enticing features for sellers on the Amazon marketplace. FBA is a feature that allows users to store and operate their products from a nearby Amazon warehouse. 

When shoppers complete a purchase, Amazon picks, packages, and delivers the product for you. On average, sellers experience a 30% to 50% increase in sales when they employ FBA. Nonetheless, you can still decide on fulfilling orders by yourself.

eBay has yet to operate an FBA-similar program and successfully launched its Managed Delivery program. This feature permits sellers with loads of inventory to quickly and conveniently fulfill orders.

Simply put, eBay’s shipping options can’t compare with Amazon’s. Until eBay replicates a program as efficient as Amazon’s FBA, Amazon triumphs in the shipping and fulfillment battle.

Additionally, choosing to handle the packaging and shipping of your products is a reasonable business practice. So if handling the logistics by yourself seems like a better decision, then there’s no reason to wait back.

Operating Fees 

To sell on eBay, merchants must pay an initial $0.35 fee for each listing. Signing up for its Basic plan costs you $28 monthly and grants you 250 listings. Depending on your business requests, eBay offers various listing packages that go as low as $28 and as high as $350.

Amazon’s individual plan allows you to sell 40 products monthly for zero monthly fees and $1 for every item sold. Then, its professional plan provides unlimited sales and charges only $40 monthly. You’ll also pay referral fees on every sale alongside the package levies your remit.

After including processing fees, operating fees on Amazon are just 3% higher than that of eBay. However, due to the complicated (and often varying) package fees, merchants selling different product ranges will find that either marketplace can be more expensive.

Conclusion

To answer the long-debated Amazon Vs. eBay debate: we believe there’s no wrong or correct answer. That’s because succeeding in either marketplace requires you to consider your business size and the demand for your product.

So if you’re dealing with huge inventories and FBA will make your business more efficient, selling on Amazon may be a good choice. Furthermore, since expensive bulk sales are more straightforward on Amazon, selling there may be a more intelligent move.

On the other hand, eBay is the better option for sellers looking for market flexibility. Merchants are responsible for creating their listings, deciding shipping rates, and electing return policies.