Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about selling on eBay versus selling on Amazon.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast - Selling On eBay Vs. Selling On Amazon
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about selling on eBay versus selling on Amazon.
Rob: All right guys, so today we are talking about eBay versus Amazon. Which is better? Which is a better fit for you, more specifically?
Melissa: Yeah, I would say that too. Like which is a better fit for you?
Because there's pros and cons to both and we're gonna dive into them a little bit on, today and kind of why we choose eBay. But a lot of people also kill it on Amazon, so there's different, it kind of depends what fits you in what you wanna sell. So, and yeah, there's pros and cons to, to both platforms.
So we're gonna dive into those. And that is one beauty of this whole business. Like we've been able to interview some awesome people with awesome businesses on this podcast and like, there's just so many different ways to do this business, which is so cool. So we're gonna dive into why we choose eBay for our business.
Rob: And there's not only eBay and Amazon, there's so many other platforms, but today we're talking about eBay and Amazon because to be honest with you guys, those are the two bohemoths. Those are the biggest platforms out there for selling. And yeah, that's why, why do we actually use eBay versus Amazon? And then kind of like Melissa said, versus I mean the pros and cons on both platforms so you can make an educated decision on what you wanted to do, an educated decision on how you wanna start your business if you need to.
Melissa: Yeah, and I would say too, like before we dive into all that, like you've, we've looked into doing Amazon a couple times. We've thought about it. We listened to, our friend sells on Amazon, and we're like, oh, we should go and do this.
And then we, we never really did. It wasn't after, it wasn't appealing to us. And we'll dive into a couple of those things why. So so let's just go ahead and start off. So like you said, Amazon and eBay are the two, like really biggest ones that I would say amazon is bigger obviously than eBay, and that's one of the things they have going for them, and it's, they're one of eBay's biggest competitions.
Because think of it as a consumer, if you're gonna go and buy something online, are you more attracted to your Amazon Prime app or the eBay app? So it kind of depends on what you're buying. But I would say like even us, we go and tend to go to Amazon, so that's probably a lot of people.
Rob: Yeah. The majority of the time that we're actually spending money on eBay is, if I can't find it on Amazon. The reason we go to Amazon is because they're quick.
I can order something this morning and sometimes I can have it here by this afternoon. Or the next day, you know, Amazon Prime, you can do that the next day. So it's very, very convenient. Now stuff that we sell, the majority of what we sell is a higher dollar, a higher profit item, and that's, those are the buyers who are actually looking on eBay.
They're not looking on Amazon because Amazon can't ship the stuff that we're selling. Our ideal client or our ideal customer, they can't do it. So, but for us, the only time I'm really buying on eBay is when I can't find it on Amazon. Or I can't, yeah, whatever it, that Amazon doesn't have it available because Amazon, it makes it so easy to buy and return, which Melissa will get into that more in a minute.
But the biggest thing is the quick shipping for us is the, that's why we use Amazon for buying.
Melissa: But make sure they're using eBay to buy those items. So we just talked about this on a podcast recently to build your feedback if you're trying to build your feedback, switch to eBay to buy some of those items to get that feedback.
Yep. But like you said, we, you people do and like us, but a lot of consumers gravitate to Amazon for certain products. So it does depend what you're selling. So if you know, like what kind of items you wanna sell, if you wanna sell you know, specific types of, you're gonna look at new items that are maybe more arbitrage or if you're selling used items like that could determine where you wanna sell at.
But you said the returns. That's a big reason why people do buy on Amazon, but that is one of the biggest reasons we don't wanna sell, us personally don't wanna sell on Amazon because we don't like returns. You have to have a big profit margin and you have to know like what percent you're gonna get back in returns.
Like sometimes we order stuff like, okay, we just ordered two shirts in two different sizes. And we know we're gonna return one because we didn't know like what size we needed. So like, I don't know, you just have to factor in those returns. And we don't like to like, we don't like returns.
Rob: So Amazon makes it so easy to get that return.
You guys know that. It's just so easy if you don't like it, for whatever reason, if it doesn't fit, If it's broken, whatever it is, I mean, you can return it like that, no questions asked. That's how they built their platform is on returns, which is awesome as a buyer when you're looking for something, but it's horrible as a seller when you are selling stuff. It makes it very, very hard to know what your income is gonna be because you can be forced to take that return no matter what.
If somebody just changes their mind, you can be forced to take that return and which you're not only losing the money on the item, you might even be losing shipping. They might even be charging, which we're not sellers on Amazon, so I don't know how that whole thing factors in. But you might be losing money on shipping as well, so going in the hole on an item versus just, you know, breaking even with a return or something like that.
You might even owe money to Amazon. So, like I said, that is one of the biggest fallbacks as a seller, looking on both platforms. It's way, way more appealing for us to be on eBay.
Melissa: And we have felt the effects of that on eBay because eBay does want us to accept returns. They want their buyers, they try to compete with Amazon, but they are a different platform and they have to realize they're a different platform and they have a different person that's coming to their app and they, instead of trying to compete with Amazon, they need to just be their own yeah app. But when Amazon came to the game like that, eBay wanted sellers to start doing free returns to be able to be able to get top rated seller, to be able to get, and, we don't do returns on our items. They're typically, people are investing, you know, a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars in our items.
They're asking questions before they buy the item, and then they're buying it. And if like we deliver the product, we're saying we're delivering, then we don't typically have a lot of returns on those items. So.
Rob: Yeah, it is, it is a big point and you can be selling smaller, lower profit items, that you might be in the same boat.
eBay does want you, they're trying to compete with Amazon. They wanna make it as easy as possible for you to return items and they want their sellers to offer returns. We specifically don't, for the items that we sell; we sell them as is. They're as advertised as pictured in videos. I mean, we do everything possible, to show the buyer exactly what they're getting.
And typically we don't deal with returns. Every once in a while we'll have. But if it is, typically it's shipping, something got damaged in shipping, which we are covered because we always pay the extra amount for insurance through shipping, and it's packaged properly. So, that's one of the biggest things is the returns that Amazon really forces their sellers to do. eBay, they try to do it as best they can. But you just have to really know how you're selling and your clientele on, on the items that you are selling.
Melissa: Yeah. So that's one of the biggest reasons we don't. That probably is one of the top reasons. Absolutely. And eBay's more of a platform for used items versus Amazon and we sell used items so we don't.
Which that is what we like to do because you love to treasure hunt. Yeah. You love to find those things out in the wild. Like going to thrift stores, going to flea markets like that. It's just a, it's a high you get yeah. People love to go find those treasures. So, but that's also some, to some people, they don't wanna go out and do that.
They wanna sit at their computer and they can do drop shipping. They can go find a product and go put it in their store and then get it fulfilled by Amazon and they never have to touch the product. So that's something that's appealing on Amazon's part too. I don't know all the fees. We don't know all the fees, no involved in all of that.
But we will, in the blog post, in the show notes of, or the blog post of this, this episode, try to get some more information in that, of some of the fees and like, versus, cuz there's fees on both sides of Amazon and eBay and there's also different fees if you have fulfillment by Amazon or fulfillment by merchant.
So there's two different ways. So if Amazon does it, you're gonna have more fees cuz they have to store your item, they have to ship your item, so you're gonna be paying for that as well versus if it's fulfilled by you, you're doing the storing and you're doing the shipping. So.
Rob: Which is more time on your end of it. So which is more time. Does it weigh out? Yeah. Who knows? We've never sold on Amazon, so we can't give you an accurate depiction or what is it? We just can't tell you exactly comparison eBay versus Amazon. We just know the majority of sellers on Amazon what they have to deal with.
Melissa: So, yeah. And we did interview, John Muscarello of Side Hustle experiment on, it was episode 127, so if you guys wanna go back and you can listen to that. We asked him some questions and some of his numbers and, like, because it's a percentage of what you're bringing in that you're actually profiting. And so he, and he was transparent and talk ed to us all about numbers and he was, you know, hitting some big months.
So, so it was really cool to talk to him. So you can check that out too and learn a little bit more about Amazon. But I wanted to also add that another thing that I feel like that eBay has a big plus over Amazon is it's way easier to get started. Versus Amazon, there's a lot of red tape for to, to get started, you have to be ungated of certain, I never really tried, so I don't know all of the things, but I know you have to be like certain areas.
You have to be ungated to be able to sell those items and that doesn't happen with eBay. The biggest thing when you're starting on eBay, they do limit you to how many listings you can have until they know that you're a legit seller and they will hold your money until the item is delivered. Yeah. Is that the, is it a set number?
Rob: I don't know. When you start off, you're talking about what's your I inventory amount?
Melissa: Like first? Yeah. Like, well, if, if your first 10 gets sold, then you can get your funds immediately. Do you know the number or?
Rob: I don't. It's a a thousand, $1,500. So they don't want somebody jumping in who's a scammer and list stuff.
Melissa: And that's a good thing.
Rob: Exactly. Selling stuff for dirt cheap and then not ever fulfilling it. And so that's the biggest thing that they're trying to avoid by having set limits when sellers first start. But to be honest with you guys, I mean, I could go as a person who's never sold on eBay before. I could open an account in 10 minutes and I can, go and list something immediately on eBay and get traction and sell that item. Now I can't do it with a $5,000 item. Because it's not smart. eBay won't do that kind of stuff, but you can absolutely do it with a couple items that are, you know, $25, $50, $100. You can totally do that and get started in one day. Amazon, not that easy. You can't just do it out of the gate.
The other thing about Amazon is typically your searches on the run of the mill items that people are selling. Your search, I mean, might be 5, 10, 15 pages down before somebody sees your item. And chances are somebody's not gonna scroll five or 10, 15 pages down to find that item and buy it just from you.
So I know there's a lot more that goes into Amazon and getting your, your items seen first. Our items that we sell on eBay, typically there's only, there's very, very few competition with it. So the large items, the items that people won't ship, we're putting those on there and we are shipping them, but we don't have a lot of competition.
Somebody's gonna see our stuff on the first page, second page, to where they're scrolling to find the best deal, on these items. They're used items, and it just makes it that much easier for us to get traction versus trying to start it off on Amazon.
Melissa: Yeah, I will say there is more competition on Amazon.
I tend, as a consumer, I tend to go and see like, well, what is Amazon suggesting to me? So those are people that, I think they're paying for promotions. I'm assuming that those are, I definitely assume so. Those are the, they're on your first page. So, and those are the things like, I kind of look, I look at price, I look at can it get here fast?
And, and then, usually it's the first page. I'm not going super far past the first page of items, maybe the second page of items on what I'm looking for.
Rob: So I'm looking for reviews when I do Amazon for items.
Melissa: Do you look on reviews?
Rob: Absolutely. So an item I do that that much. Well, an item that I'm looking at, it's just like eBay.
People are looking at feedback on eBay. If you're selling a $5,000 item, they're not gonna go and buy it from somebody who has 1, 2, 3, 4 feedback. Typically, they're not. Yeah. They're gonna go to the seller who has 500, 300, yeah. All those feedback that, and then has a hundred percent rating on the feedback. Amazon to me is reviews.
I wanna see, not a review that has five reviews on it. I wanna see one that has 500 reviews, a thousand reviews. So, you know, this item has been sold many, many times and you've known the people who have given it the reviews. Typically four or five stars, then, you know, it's probably a pretty legit item. That it has.
Yeah, that's, that's the comparison on Amazon versus eBay, feedback versus reviews, to me, that's how I shop on Amazon.
Melissa: Yeah. So there's definitely, like we love selling on eBay, we feel like it's easier to get started and it makes sense for our business. A lot of people do crush it on Amazon too. So I did wanna also in the link in the show notes, put our friend, Jessica Larrew from The Selling Family, they have, a whole bunch of resources to help with getting started on Amazon. So we'll put those down there. And if you wanted to get started on eBay, you can check out our freeflippingcourse.com, to get started on eBay, and hopefully that helps you get started there. And anything else you wanted to add about eBay versus Amazon?
Rob: Nope, that's it. All the links will be below, guys. Check it out. Guys, we cannot wait to see you guys on the next episode.