I think, Papy, that my only comment is that what @VLT or I said on how much we sell compared to Amazon is too variable with the products and category.
One big advantage of eBay however are the costs of advertising. PPC is much cheaper
Hey, that’s a big thing! Thank you!
Neptune felt left out and Saturn didn’t like being smaller than itself.
Actually, Ebay is erecting some barriers, but their priorities may not be obvious.
The Bad Buyer Experience (BBE) metric for offshore sellers is significant.
They are also requiring offshore sellers who wish to show their items as shipping from the US to apply for and receive approval for Forward Inventory Deployment. They require proof of ownership of the goods and proof that they are being warehoused in the US.
This cuts down on some of the sellers in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other countries which are using Amazon to drop ship. It also cuts down on the number of these sellers who are using “online logistics” companies who claim to source, warehouse and ship who are effectively unauthorized distributors who are drop shipping for the sellers. There appears to be a list of them which are blacklisted.
I have placed a few orders with Chinese sellers who claim to warehouse in NJ, and they actually are. The products arrive quickly, and the only hanky-panky is appears to be cheating the USPS. The shipments appear as having been made by a USPS partnered carrier in China, who never has possession of the shipment. I am willing to bet USPS gets a fraction of the commerical rate for Ground.
An area Ebay needs to fix is the “carriers” they integrate tracking from. There are several “carriers” who exist to sell sellers, who are drop shipping from Amazon, a mask for the Amazon tracking. Their tracking numbers never appear on a shipment.
So, the consensus seems to be that I should expand to MallWart first, rather than eBay.
I asked about eBay, as there is an annoying person with a knock-off (not a counterfeit, a competitive “me too” product) that he sold on Amazon, but stopped selling that product on Amazon (but still sells other products on Amazon), only to start selling on eBay.
He made the error of repeatedly using my trademarked product name in his description, and paid to use my trademark as a search keyword, too, given the bid price I saw to “buy” that keyword, something I refuse to do. I repeatedly complained about both forms of trademark infringement, but he still sells other items from the same seller account, so it would seem that Amazon’s idea of enforcing “brand registry” protections is far more lax than they claim.
So, I guess I will try MallWart. I guess that’s a separate thing to post, as this question turned out to be a separate thing to post.
eBay will not tolerate that and will shut down the account if you complain. We do reasonably well on eBay but of course our Amazon sales are much higher. I do use eBay to sell used electronics which is a side business I have been doing for years and that does very well on eBay where I wouldn’t even think about doing that on Amazon.
-Ana
In some ways, but not others. For example, ebay’s rolling period for tracking INR claims is 12 months. Ebay is still on my case about orders that (due to one of our employees not paying enough attention) we shipped with invalid tracking from June/July 2025. The items had had valid tracking and were delivered on time, the tracking was just uploaded improperly to ebay. It’s been over a year and ebay is still padding my delivery estimates to customers because of my “bad metrics.”
Not a fan of recursivity, I see 
I originally didn’t want to write “Uranus” (though it’s the 3rd largest, like eBay) because I have the mind of a 13 year old. But then when I said “let’s be mature about this” I seem to have forgotten my planets. In any case, my mistake was not necessarily wrong (other than in my pride for missing Neptune) as I kept comparing the three largest planets i.e. the 3 largest marketplaces
I’m happy that that is the case
Much needed
I sell more on eBay than Walmart, but Walmart has more “prestige” as a reference
I have been using shipstation for eBay, Walmart and shopify for years now, and while not perfect in transferring the information 100% of the time, it does work most of the time. I used to use eBay’s shipping for small items, as they did provide good rates, until the time that an 8 oz item was reweight by UPS and I could not really defend it.
Walmart and prestige in the same sentence? That’s a new one!
Anyone who believes that anomalous events are solely limited to the chief executive is ignoring life in this part of the 21st century.
No matter what your political bent, you should find opportunity to say “who wudda believed it”.
Yeah, in our category these “US sellers” are all over the place with warehouses in the US. They need to get rid of these sellers, valid or not.
I also sell the same products on eBay as Amazon. They are genuine with a significant shelf life, warranty does not apply. I have had very nice buyers, friendlier than Amazon buyers. None complain. Occasionally I will recycle an Amazon box for an eBay order (from fba returns) if it is the best fit. I do try to clean them up of labels, torn tape, etc. My items are new with tags, unless I’m selling fba returns as used condition offers.
My experience as a buyer on eBay has been very positive also. Of course what I sell, how I sell it, and what I buy have a lot to do with the positive interactions.
eBay isn’t all bad. But I do really hate what they did to the Steiner’s.
@primetime You may be the exception that proves the rule.
Much if the product sold on Ebay, in many consumer goods categories is offered by sellers who could not be approved to sell on Amazon because of how they source. B goods, liquidation product, shelf pulls and retail arb or more common than legitimately sourced product from authorized distribution.
If more Amazon sellers who went through the approval process for Amazon sold on Ebay, Ebay wouid be a better place to buy the categories which Ebay has accepted are declining in volume of sales on Ebay.
My experience selling on eBay is the opposite, and extensively negative.
- Rampant grey market products and IP theft with little to no actual enforcement. Easy for foreign actors to hide their actual location.
- Customer expectation of bartering and or increased/wasted time spent on customer communication, for either discounts or product operation/fitment/etc. Many shop on eBay because they simply believe eBay is the swap meet of the internet, and IMO they are not wrong, but I don’t have time to spend answering your email asking for another $3 off.
- Swap meet/flea market appearance. There are very few image standards, fitment guides are questionable, no minimum data points or sellers simply put N/A. Every vendor has a different appearance, which detracts from the implied security of shopping at a reliable “store”.
eBay…
Amazon
- Zero qualifications as a seller because it is a swap meet for many. One of the things I love about ebay is if I need a swap meet item, I go to the online swap meet, but telling me a seller is “Top Rated Plus” just means they have ratings, but nothing more, or any qualifications as a seller of XYZ product. For all I know, they sold a million tea cups before they sold me their set of brake pads sourced from Iran.
- I prefer the one UPC item to have all vendors listed on a clean uniform professional page. Not 20 different pages for the same exact item. The one who used the yellow border around their image and emoji’s with every bullet point should not be how I figure out who to buy from.
- No product liability insurance requirement for sellers. In the automotive category and others like it, I think this is kind of important and should be a requirement for new item sellers of any volume.
eBay just has an all around amateur/swap meet vibe, which is good for some products, but bad for others, as I would not buy my brake calipers at a swap meet.
Nailed it.
Do you think this is because of eBay as a website, eBay policies, or eBay customer base? I think it is because of the eBay customer base and their expectations 70%, and eBay policies/layout/store 30%.
I think the decades of eBay’s marketplace existence and positioning, have kind of solidified eBay into a niche, that is the equivalent of the role an actor plays preventing them from getting other jobs.
Paper print >>> Digital Media
Local >>> Nation Wide / World Wide
Auto Trader >>> CarMax
Craig’s List >>> eBay
Newspaper Garage Sale Ad >>> Facebook Marketplace
The medium has change … our expectations have not …
I think it is because Pierre wanted his site to be a marche ouvert and permanently damaged its reputation forever.
I believe every Ebay CEO starting with Meg shared this belief and in spite of their attempts to change the reputation by making the site more buyer friendly, they could not risk losing these sellers and the revenue they bring in. Instead, they are concentrating on growing the parts of the site which do not compete with Amazon, Walmart, Target and other mass market retailers.
Well, the hookers, oops, “massage therapists” did the same thing to Craigslist. Ideological freedom without boundaries usually just means crime or immorality.
@ZaphodBeeblebrox I moved some posts from another thread to here, as they were more on-topic for your question.
Especially @primetime sharing their own eBay v Amazon same-product comparison experience.
Thanks for a great question!
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