Can eBay be an alternative to Amazon?
Finding the right option as a seller
With its holding over 41% of the market (October 2021), Amazon is the undeniable dominant force in the current eCommerce landscape. In fact, during that same year, Amazon alone accounted for nearly 45% of all online shopping traffic in the United States.
However, Amazon’s grasp over eCommerce does not make its alternatives automatically irrelevant, particularly not its biggest competitor – eBay. In 2021, eBay received almost 10.4% of all visits to eCommerce and shopping websites in the US, which is no small number given the amount of online traffic in this category. The eBay app also constituted one of the most downloaded apps from Google Play and Apple, with over 400,000 downloads per month.
Moreover, market share is not the only relevant factor in choosing where to sell online for all its essentials. Different platforms bring different features, customer bases, fees, and competitors, all of which influence the success of online sales.
So, considering these factors altogether, which site is better for eCommerce vendors – Amazon or eBay? The answer depends.
Comparing Amazon and eBay
As mentioned, Amazon and eBay vary across a range of factors beyond market share, from the buyers they attract to how they treat their partners.
Categories
Amazon and eBay essentially share the same top-selling product categories: electronics, clothing, and accessories such as jewelry.
That said, eBay also features a robust automotive marketplace where people can buy and sell vehicles – something that Amazon lacks. eBay has also become a hub for rare and collectible items, making it the preferred destination for buyers with niche interests.
Lastly, Amazon places more significant restrictions on sellers than eBay regarding specific categories. Food, industrial and scientific equipment, and fine art, for example, require special review from Amazon before being approved for sale under these categories.
Seller Fees
It costs vendors less to sell on eBay than it does on Amazon.
The fees charged by eBay are:
Insertion Fees, which eBay charges when a seller creates a listing on the site (though sellers receive 250 free listings per month)
Final Value Fees, which is a percentage of the final sale value and depends on the product category
Payment Processing Fees, which are now included in the Final Value Fees
Optional Listing Upgrade Fees, which eBay charges to sellers who choose to create a specialized standout listing for their products
For Amazon, fees depend on the product being sold and the fulfillment method – whether Amazon delivers the items or whether the merchant delivers the items. Naturally, fulfillment by Amazon incurs an extra fee, according to Amazon’s calculator.
Otherwise, Amazon sellers will pay:
Per-Item Fees or Subscription Fees – Individual sellers pay a $0.99 per-item fee for every sale, whereas professional sellers pay $39.99 for a monthly selling subscription
Refund Administration Fees – Amazon charges $5.00 or 20% to process any refund request
Fulfillment Methods
Amazon, as previously mentioned, offers two options for fulfillment – by the merchant or by Amazon. For the latter option, Amazon will handle the storage, packing, and shipping of the items – a significant portion of the business supply chain.
With eBay, on the other hand, all merchants must arrange shipping and delivery themselves.
Competitiveness
Both platforms contain a high volume of sellers across their categories. The differences, then, come down to how each site ranks and lists various seller products.
Amazon works as a product catalog that seeks to match customers with the best product according to their searches, thus making SEO critical for vendors. The more aligned with Amazon’s algorithm for a specific search, the higher an item will be listed.
Most customers make purchases from Amazon through the “Buy Box,” a white box listed on the right-hand side of a product page that lists the most popular seller. Competition for this position, which updates every 6-8 hours, is fierce.
Rather than displaying products one at a time by customer match, eBay shows multiple product options at once to allow buyers to compare. This means that any given vendor’s products will be more visible to customers than Amazon.
Brand Identity
Operating since the 1990s, both Amazon and eBay have established themselves as well-known, popular eCommerce sites. However, when it comes to exact metrics on trust, Amazon slightly
outperforms its competitors, indicating that consumers have more confidence in buying from Amazon.
Sponsored Ads
Amazon and eBay offer paid options for promoting product visibility on their websites.
This program for Amazon is known as Amazon Sponsored Products, which secures higher-ranked positioning for your products according to your bid on specific keywords. Moreover, these sponsorships are pay-per-click, meaning that you only pay when customers visit your item page. Amazon also offers a range of other promotional services, reviewable here.
As for eBay, sellers may use Promoted Listings, in which they bid an amount to be paid with their Final Value Fee to boost their products in search results. As such, sellers only pay this fee when the item sells, maximizing cost-efficiency.
Regarding complexity, eBay’s sponsored service is more uncomplicated and more straightforward, yet it offers fewer options than Amazon.
Summary: Amazon or eBay?
Both Amazon and eBay help thousands and even millions of online sellers each year, sometimes making the entirety of success.
Neither can be declared the better option overall. Instead, each site offers unique features that may benefit certain businesses or products over others, which vendors can choose for themselves.
Or they can always use both.
The Cymax Group Advantage
Whether you sell on Amazon or eBay, we can help you launch your products and scale quickly on these marketplaces. With Cymax Group, you have the advantage of an end-to-end integrated eCommerce solution, unmatched 3P selling services, and back-end technology support. We do the heavy lifting for you by listing, optimizing, marketing, selling, shipping, and managing customer service for your products on multiple marketplaces.
Cymax - Top-rated 3P Seller
With close to two decades of eCommerce experience, we are one of the top-rated 3P sellers on Amazon and Walmart with a proven track record. We have the technology and expertise to get
your listing in front of the right audiences. Our expert team is constantly improving and optimizing your listings to ensure the best possible conversion rates for your products. With deep knowledge of marketing, branding, and selling on Amazon and eBay, we help you increase your probability of winning the Buy Box and increasing your sales.
AI & ML-powered Dynamic Pricing Engine
Our AI-enabled Dynamic Pricing engine is designed for businesses of all sizes and uses machine learning to price more than 500k products across major marketplaces in real-time. Our intelligent algorithms consider various factors, including product cost and competitive pricing dynamics, to determine the best value for your products. The result is smarter pricing and a higher probability of beating your competition at winning the Buy Box.
Strategic Account Partners
We offer dedicated account partners who are experts in eCommerce business management to help you list your products on top marketplaces and customize your selling strategy for each marketplace to get maximum profit.
Digital Marketing
Cymax Group’s expert digital marketing team offers product and promotion optimization with best-in-class ROAS and ACOS. Drive consistent growth in revenue and margin by aligning your business’s strategic objectives with our proven methodology, technology, expertise, and services.
The results are shared with you, down to the SKU level. This level of transparency unique to Cymax Group delivers visibility into marketing budgets and allocation, ROI, contribution, and fulfillment metrics.
Fulfillment
Our proprietary shipping platform, Freight Club, helps you fulfill your orders on time with a higher customer satisfaction rate. It is the only end-to-end freight shipping platform that manages everything from quoting and booking to complete claims management and secondary insurance protection with zero monthly cost.
As part of Cymax Group Technologies, the leading eCommerce technology and services provider, we offer exclusive access to enterprise rates from one of the largest selections of residential
shipping providers in the United States. This means you have the advantage of discounted rates for big and bulky items and freight shipments less than 15,000 pounds.
Customer Service
A smooth customer experience is a crucial driver of business growth. A high-functioning customer service team requires extensive training, experience, and resources, plus the right tools that deliver fast and efficient solutions. The customer experience team at Cymax Group promotes loyalty for your brand by providing support at every step of your customer’s shopping journey, from product inquiries to a simplified return and refund process. We ensure your customers receive high-quality customer service and leave positive feedback.