Ebay or Amazon?
Just wondering, for anyone selling on both eBay and Amazon, what percentage of total sales come from each?
For instance, one of our products has sold 2000 units in Dec but on eBay, same listing, same keywords, same price, same delivery time. we have about 30.
Would be interested to hear from anyone that seems to have cracked the eBay way of life. We have no luck on there.
80 replies
Seller_lljyzgTxr5fgI
You have hit the nail on the head. Over the years, there have seen many comments here about the differences between this platform and the other. We sell on both but 99% of our sales come from Amazon. And, like you, we can sell multiples of the same thing on Amazon and yet nothing on Ebay, despite prices being the same.
For me, the big draw to Amazon is Prime. Millions have Prime and therefore getting your item, next day in most cases, with no postage cost added on, is a huge plus. Ebay has some advantages with some products because they can’t be sold on Amazon. For example, we can sell a plastic model aircraft kit with paint included on Ebay but we can’t on Amazon because of HazMat rules. So, for Ebay, we tend to list things that we can’t sell on Amazon, mainly.
Seller_KbS8F1HhbOckz
The boring answer is… it depends!
I started on ebay and moved to Amazon. Amazon accounts for 90% of my sales.
I sell badges. It’s a simple business with low startup costs. On ebay there are hundreds of badge sellers. Many are not vat registered, prob don’t pay Corp Tax, and most ignore copyright and trademarks. These sellers can flourish on ebay and my badges are expensive in comparison.
However, few of these sellers would last 5 minutes on Amazon, which has far, far stricter rules.
Hope my perspective helps!
Seller_KjHQOlTKYaPEw
i’ve been selling on eBay for 21 years, and Amazon for 2
my Amazon sales are about 5x the eBay sales
Seller_ZQyopdiwkUHOZ
It changes for us depending on time of year. We sell novelty and movie/tv show/music tshirts, and around twice as many of our sales come from Amazon at ‘regular business times’. But there are things that increase business on Ebay that only maintain it on Amazon, so sometimes it’s close to 1 to 1. At busy times of year for both it varies from year to year.
It’s almost never the same products busy on both sites. It takes a cultural phenomenon for that.
Seller_9vYzAspLN0bEC
Amazon is really good if you follow all the requirements by law and its own T&C, for example safety reports for toys. Thats why more buyers trust Amazon.
Seller_L3E8iknKXqZNV
watches sell well on amazon. but the china sellers killed my margins. so I switched to watch parts. Watch parts is a specialist area. so box shifters have no idea.
Watch parts buyers go to ebay - they do not go to amazon. I just sell a few watch straps on amazon now and 98% of my sales are ebay. The ebay format also suits my product better.
so it depends on what you are selling.
I buy very little of anything on amazon. I usually buy on ebay and as others have said prices are stupidly low on ebay hence that is where I buy plus it is a more personal platform.
another drag with amazon is EAN numbers and the pfaff listing stuff. I closed my GS1 account last year - hooray. I now just piggy back on other sellers EANs.
Seller_ae51e0CJoHqCX
I guess asking the question on an Amazon forum is likely to favor Amazon.
I will qualify that by saying that I don’t do Ebay forums either and this is the place whereby I pick up the best tips and become a better Amazon seller.
This year especially during the postal strikes, my fba sales have held up much better than the direct sales. All marketplaces for me have shown a bit of a downturn in November and December that correspond to mail strikes. I think my ebay and Amazon FBM orders have took about the same hit but the FBA has took much less of a hit.
Seller_tHeLFV1jBxBsG
My sales are split but with ebay having the edge. However, my ebay profit is much better for 2 reasons. 1) I get a better price and 2) I sell more multi-orders whereas on Amazon I tend to sell 1 item at a time.
For me, however, the overriding issue is that Amazon is far more stressful, hence I have my Amazon shop on holiday settings at the moment and will probably leave it that way until next year.
Seller_87mKFKKA3Vwkx
I sell same items - CDs and DVDs - on both platforms - 90% or more of sales are from Amazon
Seller_sSxf9ltVoIMz9
Started on Ebay 10 years ago - Now Amazon is 70% of my sales - Ebay say 20% - had the conversation internally just this morning about closing Ebay permanently - I’m guessing that if we weren’t on Ebay then at least some of those customers would find us on Amazon (or our website) anyway. It boils down to ‘Cost of Effort’ versus ‘Return’ . More and more I’m thinking my effort is better invested in Amazon Prime (FBA) and Amazon / My website for bulk orders
