In recent times, as an eCommerce trader, you would have options for selling your inventories online. Alibaba, Walmart, Shopify provide an opportunity to the traders to showcase their products in front of the buyers.
Although there are various platforms, two of them are ahead of the others. These are eBay and Amazon. Amazon is the first and eBay being the third top functioning eCommerce platform creates confusion among the sellers like you about choosing one among them.
But you have to choose one to begin your sales. For that, you have to consider the qualities of both platforms and their compatibility with your products. Both have advantages and drawbacks. Hence, we are presenting some differences between these two popular platforms to help in making your choice easier.
One unique feature of Amazon is Amazon Prime. This feature is one of the primary reasons behind the vast and dedicated buyer base of Amazon.
Here, the customers pay a fee every month to get fast delivery. Hence, they prefer to buy from Amazon to stop wasting their prime subscription. Additionally, loyal subscribers of Amazon mostly spend their money during Prime Day and Black Friday sales.
Amazon U.S. has more than 112 million Prime subscribers and over 150 million around the world. It indicates that Amazon is easily accessible to the majority of its regular customers.
eBay provides only one option of fulfillment: Package and shipment of your products should be entirely handled by you. In comparison, Amazon provides two options, such as FBM or Fulfillment by Merchant and FBA or Fulfillment by Amazon. Therefore, if you sell your products on eBay, you would have to control every section of your business by yourself except payments.
But, Amazon offers you to share your workload by operating as your representative. They store, collect, pack, and ship your products on your behalf. Besides, they also handle the refund and return procedures. As a result, you can concentrate on other sections of your business.
Hence, FBA saves both your valuable time and money.
Related article: Third-Party fulfillment for eBay Sellers
Both Amazon and eBay are very established, and people have been using them since the mid-'90s. But, when you are considering trust, Amazon is always ahead in the competition. Moreover, the company's fundamental mission, vision, and values are solely dependent on consumer trust.
In a current Jungle Scout survey, more than 70% of U.S customers said that they relied on Amazon more than any other e-commerce company.
An additional benefit of Amazon is its smooth facility while you return any product. Their A-Z guarantee would assure you that you would get a full refund if you are not satisfied with the quality of the product or the time taken for delivery compared to eBay's service.
Hence, by supporting customers during post-purchase procedures, Amazon is creating brand loyalty.
Generally, e-Bay charges lower costs than Amazon.
eBay's fees
When you sell your product on eBay, the fees that you would have to pay are:
You can utilize eBay's free calculator to estimate your product's listing cost.
Related: Six Best Selling Category and Products on Amazon
Amazon's fees vary based on FBA or FBM. If you want to gather knowledge about the costs associated with any product being traded via FBA, you can analyze the Jungle Snugs case study.
Jungle Sung's current selling price is $23.17. When you enter this value into Amazon's FBA calculator, you will get the "Item Price." From there, you can analyze how the fees vary for FBM vs. FBA.
Point to note: FBM doesn't include the shipping cost. Hence if you're selling via FBM, you would have to consider the shipping charges.
There are some additional fees that you would have to pay as an Amazon trader. These are:
Since the beginning, eBay is a marketplace, but Amazon is both a marketplace and a retailer. It mainly retails for third-party traders. Moreover, Amazon restricts the products depending on their quality.
Amazon generally doesn't sell second-hand goods. It has no auction model like eBay. In the case of the auction model, there's no control over the estimated price of inventory and profits. But, in Amazon, the product price is prefixed and set by you. Hence, you have complete control over your profit.
Although, Amazon sells second-hand books. Because Amazon began its journey as an online book store, but customers generally prefer Amazon for purchasing brand new products. Even Amazon is used as a searched engine for newly launched products.
Hence, Amazon sells better quality products that are readily available. To expand your Amazon business, firstly, you would have to do some product research, then find the correct supplier, and at last create a unique listing to attract customers. In this way, you can generate good revenue.
You would also have to choose a proper business model. You would have to decide whether you want to sell second-hand products or brand new items. Remember, you can do both on Amazon.
Related: eBay Vs. Amazon - A Complete Comparison Guide
Now that you know the distinct feature of these two platforms, we hope you would understand which of them would be beneficial to your business. It can be Amazon or eBay, or even both.
However, no matter your choice, this is a preferable time to start your online business.
Next article: 5 Best Products to Sell Online in 2020
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