Amazon vs Ebay? The year 2020 made people appreciate purchasing items online. Data has shown that there is an increase in the number of people who prefer to purchase items online. This is something that online sellers took advantage of last year. Many brands are asking which platforms make sense for them to use to sell their products.
Two of the platforms brands will likely consider are Amazon and eBay? These two marketplaces lead in market share for the United States. Each platform, whether you chose to be on Amazon Seller Central or eBay, has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will outline the differences and similarities of Amazon Seller and eBay Seller platforms.
Selling on Amazon vs Ebay Platform
Before we start, let’s get some context. We are going to talk about the platform used by sellers on Amazon and eBay. These platforms are geared towards helping sellers track and market their products.
Type of Sellers on the Platform
There is a clear difference between Amazon seller and eBay seller with regards to types of sellers. Amazon allows third-party sellers including individuals to sell on their platform, however, the platform is geared towards selling products as a business, not as an individual. At the same time, Amazon sells its own products, therefore, when you sell your products on Amazon, be prepared to run into some competition from Amazon itself. eBay on the other hand allows only third-party sellers, while you will be competing with your fellow sellers, you won’t be competing with eBay, since they do not have their own product to sell. eBay also is a more conducive environment for buying products from person to person and the selling of used products.
Amazon vs Ebay Selling process
While Amazon only has one selling process and that is to directly sell to the consumer for a fixed price through their platform. eBay does things differently. While eBay also has that same direct selling capability, one of their unique selling features is the auction selling. Where an item can be auctioned off and the highest bidder gets the item when the specified time runs out.
Number of Platform Users in Amazon vs eBay
When you choose a platform, one of the main things that you should consider is the number of users that are on the platform. Which platform has a wider audience? According to the latest data on similarwebs, Amazon has about 2-3 Billion traffic per month while eBay has about 900 Million – 1 Billion traffic every month. You therefore have more audience to show your products on Amazon than on eBay.
Ease of Use
eBay Seller Hub and the process of selling or listing your product is their platform is pretty straightforward. This is because inventory quality is not being taken into consideration unlike with Amazon especially if you are under their FBA program. eBay just provides the marketplace to sell your products, but Amazon on the other hand also provides the marketing of your product and ranking on their platform gives your product more exposure. With the added benefits of “exposing” your products to a lot more people, hitting the requirements of Amazon is really worth it. On Amazon, you’ll likely have to go through certain approvals to sell certain categories and there are more hoops to jump through to sell products.
Appearance of Products and Approvals
In eBay, you create a new individual listing for each product you are selling. There may be several listings for the exact product you are selling. On Amazon, any products that use the same barcode are sold through the same listing. A customer may not be aware that there are multiple sellers selling the same product. Sellers on eBay have to provide all their own images and descriptions.
In conclusion
Amazon provides more features but in terms of Ease of use eBay is a lot more favorable. That doesn’t mean that it should stop you from placing your products in both platform. You only have to be prepared to do more work on Amazon than on eBay. But with you taking care of product improvement, optimizing your Amazon product listing might be a very difficult task. There is an easy way to navigate the complex maze of Amazons’ requirements and algorithms. This is by consulting with an expert Amazon Consultant, who is well adept with Amazon requirements for sellers and for optimizing product listings.
