Did you know that 40% of US online shoppers buy from Amazon or eBay? This shows how big these online selling platforms are. As a seller, you know the importance of picking the right platform. Well, the choice between Amazon vs eBay depends on many factors like customer types, business models, fees, and how products are shipped.
Overall, here are the key differences between Amazon and eBay:
- Amazon is like a traditional retail store, while eBay is more like an auction house
- Amazon offers FBA options, while eBay sellers manage their own shipping
- Selling on eBay is cheaper than selling on Amazon
- Amazon has a far larger customer base compared to eBay’s
- It’s harder to compete on Amazon than on eBay
- Product focus on Amazon and eBay is different
Now, let’s discover whether Amazone or Bay is the best for your business!
Amazon or eBay - Why Not Sell on Both?
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Amazon vs eBay: At a glance
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore, but it quickly evolved into a massive marketplace offering a wide range of digital and physical goods. Originally focused on competing with traditional retailers, Amazon later recognized eBay as its biggest competitor.
In contrast, as one of the biggest Amazon competitors, eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, just one year after Amazon. The company started out as an online auction platform, initially called “AuctionWeb.” The platform gained rapid traction, with $7.2 million worth of merchandise sold within the first year. In 1997, the company changed its name to eBay and expanded beyond auctions to include fixed-price listings.
Here is the key difference between Amazon and eBay: Amazon is like a huge retail store worldwide, focusing on new products at set prices. On the other hand, eBay is more like an auction house. It has the thrill of bidding wars and appeals to those looking for used items, collectibles, or rare finds.
Feature | Amazon | eBay |
Pricing Model | Fixed Price | Auction & Fixed Price |
Product Condition | New | New & Used |
Seller Base | Professional and private | Largely private sellers or smaller shops |
Best For | New, high-demand goods | Unique, niche, or rare items |
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Amazon and eBay Comparison: Which is Better?
1. Amazon vs eBay: Customer base
Knowing who buys on eBay and Amazon is crucial for selling well on these sites.
eBay
More than half of mobile eBay users in the US were men, while women comprised the remaining 38.3%. In addition, 39% of eBay buyers are in the 18-24 age group.
They look for everything from rare items to common household goods. They love finding deals and the excitement of bidding. EBay buyers are considered more price-sensitive, which can benefit sellers targeting budget-conscious consumers.
Amazon
In contrast, Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) makes up the largest portion of Amazon’s customer base, accounting for 34% of purchases in 2023. This is in contrast to younger Gen Z shoppers, who seem less enthusiastic about Amazon, with only 7% participating.
The typical Amazon customer in the United States is predominantly female, making up 60% of the eCommerce giant’s customer base. These shoppers tend to be from Generation X, rather than Baby Boomers. On average, the annual income of Amazon’s typical customer is around $60,000.
Amazon draws in a wide range of customers, especially Amazon Prime users. These users want fast shipping, many choices, and extra perks like streaming.
Amazon vs eBay customer base – the verdict: While eBay is ideal for budget-conscious shoppers (especially young men) who enjoy scoring deals on everything from collectibles to everyday items, Amazon is perfect for convenience-seekers (especially Generation X and women) with a wider disposable income.
2. Amazon vs eBay: Business model
Understanding eBay and Amazon’s business models is key to seeing their effect on online markets.
Amazon
Amazon focuses on offering low prices, fast delivery, and an unmatched selection of products.
The company generates most of its eCommerce revenue through two primary models. The first is direct online and physical store sales of its inventory. The second is commissions and fees collected from third-party sellers.
In its operation, Amazon resembles a traditional retail store, selling both its own products and those from third-party sellers. Similar to a standard retail site, it maintains fixed prices on all products, with no haggling or bidding wars. The price you see is the price you pay.
A key strategy for Amazon is selling its own private label and exclusive products on the platform. This challenges third-party sellers, as Amazon often prioritizes the placement and visibility of its products in search results, even when competitor offerings have superior ratings and reviews. This practice gives Amazon’s in-house products a significant advantage.
Additionally, many sellers report that competing with Amazon on price is extremely difficult. The marketplace often undercuts competitors by lowering prices on its own products. Some sellers even claim that Amazon will purchase their products wholesale and resell them at a lower price, making it virtually impossible to match.
As a result, many third-party sellers avoid direct competition with Amazon’s product offerings altogether. Instead, they focus on finding niche products or building their own unique brands to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
eBay
The business model is a big difference between Amazon and eBay. Unlike Amazon, eBay’s business model is centered around facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers. Unlike Amazon, which primarily sells its own products, eBay acts as a marketplace where buyers can find and purchase items from a wide range of sellers. eBay itself does not sell anything.
The core value of eBay is its unique auction format, which allows buyers to bid on items, as well as fixed-price listings. While it provides both auction-style listings and fixed-price options, the responsibility for listing items, setting prices, and shipping to buyers lies entirely with the sellers. eBay’s role is to provide the marketplace, while sellers handle the rest.
eBay’s revenue is generated primarily through transaction fees, including insertion fees for listing an item, final value fees based on the sale price, and additional fees for services like PayPal transactions.
Some business models that work well on both platforms include:
- Private label – you create your own branded products, often by sourcing from manufacturers and putting your own label on the items.
- Wholesale – you buy products in bulk directly from the manufacturer or wholesaler at wholesale prices, then resell the products on Amazon at a markup.
- Online arbitrage – you find products sold at lower prices on other websites or in physical stores, then resell those products on Amazon for a higher price to make a profit.
- Retail arbitrage – you source products from local retail stores instead of online. often by looking for clearance items or other discounted products to resell on Amazon.
- Dropshipping – you list products on Amazon without stocking the inventory yourself as the supplier stores and ships products directly to your customer.
- Handmade – you sell your own handcrafted products directly to customers on Amazon.
Amazon vs eBay business model – the verdict: In summary, Amazon operates as a traditional retailer with a focus on customer experience and market dominance, while eBay is a facilitator of peer-to-peer transactions, deriving revenue from seller fees rather than direct product sales.
3. Amazon vs eBay: Product Type
Here comes another difference between Amazon and eBay – products. Although these top online marketplaces have diverse product ranges, the difference is remarkable. Keep scrolling through to find out how they differ from one another and if your products might fit in.
Amazon
Amazon has a vast selection of new products across a wide range of categories, with a more structured product catalog feel compared to eBay.
The platform offers millions of products across over 30 top-level categories, including:
- Electronics
- Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry
- Home & Kitchen
- Beauty & Personal Care
- Books
- Toys & Games
- Sports & Outdoors
- Automotive
- Pet Supplies
- Grocery & Gourmet Foods
Within each top-level category, there are numerous subcategories that sellers can list their products under to improve visibility.
Some categories on Amazon are “gated” or restricted, meaning sellers need special approval from Amazon to list products in those categories. Examples of Amazon restricted products include:
- Collectible Coins
- Fine Art
- Music & DVD
- Software
- Video Games
Amazon allows sellers to list products in new condition across all categories. Certain categories also allow used, certified refurbished, and collectible condition listings, including:
- Books
- Home & Garden
- Musical Instruments
- Office Products
- Personal Computers
eBay
When comparing eBay vs Amazon, eBay has a more diverse marketplace, offering a wide range of new and used items, collectibles, vintage goods, and unique finds.
The platform has more of a “garage sale” feel, with buyers often using broader search terms to discover unique or hard-to-find items rather than searching for specific products.
Selling used goods, vintage items, and one-off collectibles is particularly well-suited for the eBay platform, as there is high demand from buyers looking for these types of products.
In contrast to Amazon’s more structured product catalog, eBay’s diverse product mix appeals to a different type of buyer who may be browsing for unexpected or rare finds.
Third-party sellers often find eBay a better fit for listing used, vintage, or niche products that may not sell as well on the more new product-focused Amazon marketplace.
eBay allows sellers to list products in a variety of conditions, including:
- New
- Used
- Collectible
- Refurbished
This flexibility in product conditions is a key differentiator from Amazon, which primarily focuses on new product sales.
Certain eBay categories, such as Books, Home & Garden, and Musical Instruments, are more conducive to used, collectible, and refurbished product listings.
Amazon vs eBay products – The verdict: In summary, eBay’s diverse marketplace caters to buyers seeking a wider range of product types, including new, used, vintage, and unique items – a stark contrast to Amazon’s more structured focus on new product sales across its vast catalog.
4. Amazon vs eBay: Seller fees
Here comes another key factor when you decide whether to sell on Amazon or eBay. Some users have dubbed eBay “feeBay” because of its high fees. However, Amazon has its own set of seller fees depending on what you’re selling.
Amazon
Speaking of Amazon selling charges, there are quite a few sections you need to take note of:
- Individual plan: This is suitable if you are starting out and selling fewer than 40 units.
- Professional plan: If you sell more than 40 units each month and need to use Amazon selling tools, the Professional plan is ideal.
- Referral commission: This charge ranges from 8 to 20% and goes from $0.30. Apparel and gift cards are among the categories with the highest commission rates.
- FBA charges: Such fees are determined if Amazon recognizes your items as Compact or not. If your items belong to the Compact list, FBA fees likely stay low.
Additional fees on Amazon you might have to pay include advertising, variable closing fees, shipping fees, and removal fees. Check out our detailed analysis of Amazon seller fees and stay updated!
eBay
Many merchants are asking if eBay fees are too high. Is it true? Or is eBay cheaper than Amazon? To find out and conclude about eBay vs Amazon fees, let’s look more closely at eBay! First of all, below is the overview of eBay fees for selling:
Apart from eBay’s compulsory fees, you are likely to pay for:
- eBay selling taxes (This mainly includes income taxes and VAT or GST).
- International seller fees (You will pay 1.5% extra of the final value fees based on your sale price).
- Listing upgrades (You only pay for this if you add features to your existing listings).
- Added eBay final value fees (It applies when your business performance doesn’t adapt to eBay’s standards).
Amazon vs eBay seller fees – The verdict: Amazon has a more complex fee structure with both per-item and monthly subscription options. eBay fees are primarily based on a percentage of the final sale price, with insertion fees. Higher-volume sellers may benefit more from Amazon’s economies of scale, while eBay can be more cost-effective for occasional or niche sellers.
5. Amazon vs eBay: Fulfillment
Obviously, shipping and order fulfillment are key players for any marketplace, and this eBay vs Amazon case is no exception. Both marketplaces offer different shipping and fulfillment options for sellers. So, here’s what you should know about shipping and fulfillment when selling on Amazon vs eBay.
Amazon
Fortunately, Amazon FBA and FBM are among the most appealing features for third-party sellers. In fact, Amazon FBA may be the answer to why Amazon is better than eBay. So what exactly is Amazon FBA?
FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is a service that allows you to store your products at an Amazon warehouse near you. Amazon will pick, pack, and ship on your behalf when a sale is made.
By this, sellers can allow Amazon to store and fulfill orders which is way more convenient. Furthermore, FBA also gives sellers customer service and marketing benefits, such as eligibility for Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime.
If you don’t want to use FBA, check out FBM (Fulfilment by Merchants). In particular, FBM requires you to handle all fulfilling and shipping tasks. This would mean more work for you but greater control over customer data and feedback. Regarding this matter, choices are up to you.
Apart from Amazon FBA, the marketplace provides “Free two-day shipping” to Amazon Prime members, which can entice shoppers to click “Buy”. Counting these features solely, selling on Amazon truly sounds tempting.
With Amazon FBA and Free two-day shipping, will eBay win this round? Let’s discover the next section on Amazon vs eBay shipping and fulfillment!
eBay
Unlike Amazon, eBay does not have its own fulfillment service like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). eBay sellers are responsible for handling their own order fulfillment.
The platform finally launched Managed Delivery in 2020. This fulfillment service allows sellers who sell a lot of inventory to fulfill orders more conveniently and swiftly.
Plus, eBay has an International Shipping Program, which lets sellers ship to eBay’s global shipping hub in Kentucky. Then, it will be in charge of taking care of any customs formalities and shipping to buyers worldwide. Hence, this marketplace will be accountable for any delays in delivery.
In case you don’t want to use eBay fulfillment services to reduce selling costs, you must learn how to ship on eBay properly. You’ll be responsible for choosing, packing, and shipping your own orders if you’re selling on eBay to people in your own country. Don’t worry much about it; there are plenty of service providers who will do it for you if you’re willing to accept a blow to your profit margins.
In terms of shipping and fulfillment, is it better to sell on Amazon or eBay for you? Evidently, shipping and fulfillment on eBay will be more challenging because you have to start from scratch. However, there will always be ways to ensure fast shipping and increase purchase rates. Our suggestions for eBay shipping would be:
- Combining shipping
- Choosing the right carriers
- Optimizing packaging
Amazon vs eBay shipping and fulfillment – The verdict: In a nutshell, Amazon offers more shipping options to merchants than eBay does, this is a no-brainer. It’s possible that eBay businesses should attempt to undercut FBA on pricing, opening up new markets. But until it does, Amazon is the winner.
6. Amazon vs eBay: Advertising and marketing
Advertising and marketing are always good ideas to get an edge over your competitors, which are worth the investment. In the Amazon vs eBay comparison, both offer additional services to help you push your product ahead. Are you ready to figure them out? Let’s roll in!
Amazon
Amazon advertising operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) program in which you pay each time your customers click through an ad link. This mechanism resembles that of Google. Due to the PPC model, keeping track of your budget for ad campaigns and avoiding any Amazon advertising mistakes is critical.
More about Amazon advertising, here are 3 major types:
- Sponsored Products: This applies to one listing you wish to promote on Amazon search result pages. What’s more, Amazon Sponsored Products ad type operates on the PPC model.
- Sponsored Brands: Like Amazon Sponsored Products, Amazon Sponsored Brands is a PPC model. However, it is a self-service ad that helps brands showcase in shopping results.
- Sponsored Display: Last but not least, Sponsored Display is a self-generated ad targeting interested shoppers on Amazon. This would be a helpful tool for your advertising.
Besides, Amazon provides you with other tools to enhance advertising results and marketing efforts, such as Amazon demand-side platform or Amazon A+ Content.
Notes: Keep in mind that advertising can immensely affect your overall charges. In accordance with that, rising advertising costs will lead to different results in Amazon selling fees vs eBay.
eBay
Continuing to answer “Which is better – eBay or Amazon?”, we’ll now delve into the world of eBay advertising and marketing. In summary, eBay offers you the following tools to promote products and provoke purchase rates:
- Promoted Listing: This is probably the most popular advertising type on eBay. You choose your listings to promote and choose your ad rate. Then, eBay will display those in search results or relevant product pages.
- eBay Sponsored Products: It is quite similar to Promoted Listings. You choose your products and then set your daily budget. eBay will display them within search results.
- Markdown Manager: Despite not being an exact advertising tool, eBay Markdown Manager allows you to schedule sales events for your products.
- eBay Terapeak: Before implementing any ad campaigns, use eBay Terapeak and get real-time insights into market trends.
Once again, when starting advertising campaigns on Amazon and eBay, pay attention to your budget. Needless to say, your cost to sell on eBay vs Amazon will be heavily impacted by this fee.
Amazon vs eBay advertising and marketing – The verdict: Overall, it’s a tie. Amazon offers more ways to control how you advertise your products, while eBay gives you more tools to make data-driven decisions.
7. Amazon vs eBay: Buyer trust and loyalty
Understanding how buyers trust and stay loyal to sellers is key when comparing Amazon vs eBay. These factors shape how people shop and decide where to buy things. They also help sellers pick the best platform for their products.
eBay
eBay is known for its user-driven model, where buyers and sellers interact directly. This means buyers can rate sellers, creating a transparent and trustworthy environment. This direct interaction is a big plus for eBay, but it can also lead to varied experiences for buyers.
eBay places a strong emphasis on building trust and loyalty with its buyer community through features like:
- Detailed seller ratings and reviews
- Money-back guarantee for buyers
- Dispute resolution process
- Buyer protection programs
In the second quarter of 2023, eBay had over 132 million active buyers worldwide. The platform maintains a customer satisfaction score of 81 out of 100 in 2023, which is considered high for the eCommerce industry.
Amazon
Amazon strongly emphasizes building consumer trust, which is reflected in its vision and values. Their A-Z Guarantee and easy returns policy contribute to this trust.
Amazon places a strong emphasis on cultivating long-term, loyal relationships with its customers through features like:
- Personalized product recommendations
- Reliable and fast delivery
- Easy returns and responsive customer service
- Robust customer review system
Amazon has over 180 million Prime members globally, who pay an annual subscription fee for expedited shipping and other benefits. This demonstrates the high level of loyalty among Amazon’s core customer base. Amazon’s customer satisfaction score is 83 out of 100 in 2023. This reflects the positive experiences customers have on the platform.
Amazon vs eBay buyer trust and loyalty – the verdict: eBay offers a transparent, user-driven experience with seller ratings and buyer protections, while Amazon focuses on a smooth, convenient buying experience with guarantees, fast delivery, and personalized recommendations. This fosters strong loyalty, especially among Prime members.
Which is Better – Amazon or eBay – FAQs
From our point of view, Amazon seems safer. An eCommerce can be a risky industry, but Amazon may have more safeguards in place because you don’t have to engage with your customers. The payments to the seller are completely handled by Amazon. Having that said, Amazon and eBay have numerous measures in place to protect both their buyers and sellers. Yes, eBay is still popular. In fact, eBay has the second highest ranking in the U.S. for eCommerce and Shopping. Also, according to the latest data, eBay got 722.7 million visits in September, 2023. There are roughly 18 million sellers on eBay, and 9.7+ million sellers on Amazon in 2023, according to the latest data. Both Amazon and eBay are quite easy to set up with a straightforward process. You just need to create an account, list your products, and set up your payment, shipping, and order fulfillment method. No, eBay isn’t bigger than Amazon. As a matter of fact, Amazon ranks first in eCommerce and shopping worldwide. Also, this is by far the largest eCommerce companies that has expanded to other branches with its web services and streaming services. There are plentiful alternatives for Amazon eBay USA such as Etsy, Walmart, TikTok Shop, Google Shopping, Facebook Marketplace, and many more selling platforms. Check out our Retail Blog for more information!
What’s Better – eBay or Amazon?
Is eBay better than Amazon? Should I sell on eBay or Amazon?
There is no right or wrong answer, it depends on your business size and demand. However, just because Amazon is a better fit for you or your products doesn’t mean you can’t sell on eBay as well.
Many sellers list their products on multiple marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, to name a few. In fact, 80% of Amazon sellers also sell on other platforms. That’s why LitCommerce’s multichannel selling solution makes it simple to sell on various marketplaces while managing your inventory from a single central catalog.
If you need more info, leave us a message. We’re always ready to help. Also, you can follow our Retailer Blog for more exciting eCommerce news and tips.
