Amazon vs. eBay: Which Platform is Better In 2025?

In today’s rapidly rising wave of e-commerce, every business is eyeing expansion in an online mode. Given the massive number of online sales platforms present in the market, choosing the perfect option is a critical task of equivalent importance. Amazon and eBay are the two most popular choices for businesses starting afresh or planning to step into the digital market space. While both these sales channels seem similar at a distance, they have striking differences, which will be discussed in this blog. From basic to professional, this blog will give you an idea of everything you need to know about Amazon and eBay. 

Brief View of Amazon and eBay 

Amazon is the largest online marketplace where third-party sellers have a platform to showcase their products to a global audience. It acts like an online departmental store that sells everything from a pin to a plane (though a toy one). Sellers can make sales in different categories of products like fashion, food and beverages, kids’ section, home appliances, and a lot more. Amazon Marketplace offers a great deal of tools and benefits to its sellers, making it the perfect option for sellers with low infrastructural support. 

eBay is a global marketplace for sellers wishing to list their unique products for buyers across the globe. Unlike Amazon selling, eBay marketplace allows sellers to sell their products in an auction format, along with a fixed price listing option. eBay store also give sellers a variety of categories under which they can make sales. Seller Hub of the sales channel is a pool of tools for sellers to grow on an exponential level. 

Key Differences Between the Amazon and eBay

After grabbing the basic details, let’s dive into the difference between these two global sales platforms: 

1. Product Fit 

The kind of product sold by your company influences the choice to a great extent. 

Amazon: Amazon is a go-to platform for sellers with new and mass-produced goods of a wide variety. It lays special emphasis on fast delivery, allowing the sellers to provide quick service of daily use goods. 

eBay: eBay on the other hand, is more suitable for unique, vintage or collectible products due to its auction-style selling for customers looking for something ‘one of a kind’. eBay sellers get a marketplace with less competition for niche products.

2. eCommerce Tools

eCommerce tools are used by the seller to simplify the selling process. 

Amazon: Amazon offers a variety of e-commerce tools and add-on features like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), wherein Amazon takes complete responsibility for order fulfillment. Apart from this, the marketplace offers advanced tools for inventory management and SEO through the Seller Central dashboard. 

eBay: eBay is a rather simple marketplace that offers a straightforward field for selling. eBay presents its sellers with multi-use account access and simplified ebay inventory management, but lacks the advanced tools required for high-volume sales. 

3. Pricing

Cost incurred on these sales channels will affect the profits, hence it is an important deciding factor. 

Amazon: Amazon’s fee structure is quite elaborate. It includes subscription fees, referral fees, and fulfillment costs altogether. Due to this, sellers have to pay a higher fee of $39.99 per ninth while individual sellers pay $0.99 per item sold. For Amazon’s fulfillment services, sellers also have to pay monthly storage fees along with inventory charges.

eBay: eBay allows its sellers to list around 250 items per month for free. After that, a $0.35 seller fee is included on every listing, and final value fees of 13.25% for most categories. Sellers can subscribe to eBay stores for $7.95/month to lower the expenses. 

4. Customer Support 

Customer Support is quite a hectic part of online selling and holds a great influence on customer satisfaction. 

Amazon: Amazon gives its sellers automated solutions to handle customer queries. Amazon takes care of the customer support along with delivery for its FBA sellers. Support is provided through chat, phone, and email. Even for non-FBA sellers, the Customer Service by Amazon program is there so that they do not have to struggle with customer disputes.  

eBay: eBay provides guides and tools to resolve common customer support issues. It also has live chat and email support for more complex cases. With eBay, sellers often have to handle the queries on their own as the platform does not provide extensive support for high-volume sales. 

5. Audience 

Consumer base is another prime factor that will influence your decision. 

Amazon: Amazon holds a gigantic consumer base of over 310 million globally. There are approximately 2 million active sellers, while the registered sellers account for 9 million in total.

eBay: eBay has an active consumer base of 134 million, with over 17 million sellers operating on the platform. 

6. Payment Processing 

Payments are a constant matter of concern when it comes to online selling. Here is a comparison of these two sales channels. 

Amazon: Amazon Pay is the payment system for Amazon customers and sellers. It is integrated into the marketplace to use their stored payment information, like credit/debit cards, gift balances, and addresses at checkout. Also, refunds and payment processing are all carried out through this mode. 

eBay: eBay has recently brought a new managed payments system. Hence, sellers can accept payments from Credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, PayPal, eBay gift cards, and other local options, depending on the buyer's region. 

Comparison Table: Amazon Vs eBay

Amazon Vs eBay: What Would Work for You? 

Choose eBay if: 

As a seller, you can choose eBay if you are selling collectibles and running a small business with vintage and one-of-a-kind items. As the platform provides an auction system, sellers can easily test demand or move rare goods. With fixed-price listings, sellers can create a traditional store feel, giving them the advantage of versatility. Apart from this, sellers can also sell products that are otherwise restricted on Amazon while having better control over pricing and return policies. The profit margin with eBay’s business is better as the fee is lower. 

Choose Amazon if: 

Amazon is the ideal sales channel for sellers who have established businesses, high sales volume, and mass-produced goods. With the huge consumer base that it has, Amazon offer better conversion rates and higher visibility. Also, Amazon FBA makes inventory management and logistics easy by taking care of storage, shipping, and customer support. Strong performance is also rewarded by Amazon's review system, as favorable comments can result in significant purchases. 

The Final Word

Finally, one can say that Amazon and eBay are equally compatible, but the use cases are different. But as a seller, you might also think that you want to register on both these sales channels but the management of the two together will be a task in itself. There will be definite struggles with multichannel selling, multichannel ecommerce integration, multichannel order management, order fulfillment, inventory management, and everything in ecommerce. What if just one application solves all these issues together? MapMyChannel does exactly that for your business - it is a multichannel selling solution that integrates different sales channels together on a centralized dashboard for easier business management and automation of order fulfillment. It allows 3PL integration and inventory management together on a simple integration of different sales channels.