I have very little product overlap between eBay and Amazon. Amazon is for my handmade jewelry. My eBay shop is small inexpensive vintage items (mostly jewelry), destash jewelry supplies, and a smattering of my handmade on clearance. I’m pretty sure most of my handmade products are priced too high for eBay. I don’t do auctions, nor accept counter offers.
I’m a stickler for accurate descriptions wherever I sell. However, I lowered my photography standards when I realized that I was spending 10 minutes on a one-only $5 item. My eBay pics are good enough, but hardly perfection.
I’ve had a very good experience with the eBay “Vero” program - there have been 2 dozen eBay sellers from 2025 to now who were so stupid as to simply copy our Amazon listing verbatim, and (apparently) hope to take orders from eBay customers, place orders on Amazon, and make a small amount on each transaction.
One standard email to their “vero” address pointing out the copyright violation, where the only things we need to change for each complaint are the date and the URL to the eBay listing at issue, and the listing disappears. (We did file a copyright for the Amazon listing some time ago, but an easier approach would have been to rely on the copyright for our label text and artwork.)
BUT it is annoying that eBay has no “memory” in regard to stopping new offenders who do the same thing, or create a listing with the same trademark infringement as we have complained about before. Amazon is much the same - they have successfully created exceptions to both copyright and trademark law that hold them harmless for their own actions (or inaction), and put the IP owner in the situation of having to play “Wack-A-Mole” without any recourse through the courts, as both platforms protect the identity of the offending seller(s), yet claim that their own internal versions of copyright and trademark law is sufficient. The arrogance is breathtaking.
A few years ago I read that eBay sellers overseas were getting hit with IP lawsuits here, that had their account balance frozen, essentially holding their money hostage if they did not pay a penalty for IP theft.
I don’t know the validity or accuracy of that of those claims, but it would be nice to have some of my IP complaints actually acted upon, with more than just an email and listing deletion.
I’m with you
eBay is much smaller, and while I do have a few complains, and I understand why is not a fit for everything, it’s a fit for somethings.
I do take pride in doing good listings, placing good offers, and offering good product/service. That’s on me, not on eBay
Anecdotical, while my total sales on Amazon are exponentially bigger than the eBays, my largest orders have come from eBay. Sometimes (less often than I would want, maybe once a year, every 18 months) I have had people buy 5 digits worth of product in one single order. Why they don’t call me and ask for a direct price is beyond me. But it has happened enough times for it to be a possibility.
I suspect there is a big difference in the type of products and their interested buyers. Mine have no fitment issues or instructions, most are decorative, some are holiday themed. My descriptions are honest if there are flaws or defects (Amazon returns or manufacturer defects). Flaws/defects must be minimal and generally acceptable or I won’t bother with selling them.
I don’t do auctions, I don’t accept offers. I have had exactly 3 buyers try to make offers anyway but I declined.
I use my Amazon product photos and descriptions, so listing creation is quick and easy. If the condition is used, I check that box and add a photo or two and a tailored bullet point to the description.
I don’t list my higher priced new condition stuff there. Mostly it’s FBA returns that Amazon deemed defective, but they’re not; and some older items that I still have a few of but are buried in Amazon’s search and not worth advertising.
I recover some of my initial investment, add a little to the bottom line, and keep stuff out of the landfill if possible.*
*
I drive past a landfill too often, that has nearly tripled in size in the past decade and stinks in the summer. I’d rather find a new home for something if possible than contribute to that growth.
All of these are your personal professional standards, and not part of any minimum marketplace standards demonstrating where the lower end of the bar is set for sellers. Not everyone who sold on craigslist was a prostitute, but a LOT of prostitutes were on craigslist.
I am sitting on like 5 cases left, of blank white UPS labels from an eBay seller. I know they drop shipped them from UPS using some corporate account, but if UPS lets them, and eBay lets them, and the government does not hold eBay accountable, it probably isn’t actually theft.
One thing that I’ve sadly learned is not to use my company’s eBay account to purchase things that I’ll use for my business.
I’m beyond certain that I fenced a Zebra printer despite having bought it from what appeared to be a legit seller. This was 2-3 years ago, so I don’t fully remember how it went, but it was something along the lines of a buying a ZP505, receiving the ZP450 and having the seller short of confess that “he had gotten that from the store” or something of the sort.
Item was obviously stolen, and I reported him to eBay (just checked and his account is closed, though I don’t take credit for that), but didn’t escalate it too much because he had all the info of my eBay selling account and my products/brand, and I didn’t want the retributions.
Since then I use my personal eBay account and ship to an unrelated address (from both house or business)
Bad sellers abound. It remains me of the joke:
“99% of lawyers give the other 1% a bad name”
I actually don’t buy boxes from them, I get their padded mailers. I like the quality and can count on it being consistent. I’ve had a few bad experiences with other padded mailer brands, cheap paper that tears easily, inner dimensions smaller than stated so my product is harder or impossible to insert.
I also don’t have space for 500-box runs in all the different box sizes I need.