Ebay to Amazon Marketplace

Kingdom34 · 9 Jan 2017 at 15:32

Hi All

Currently have a little side business firmly reliant on ebay (about 80% of my business is obtained through this stream, 20% via fb)

Im looking at alternative revenue streams and Amazon Marketplace was one of them.

Does anyone have any experience/currently trade on there?

Is it as biased towards buyers as ebay is? Ie no leg to stand on, when it comes to false claims/scammers?

Thought id ask here first.

diamount · 9 Jan 2017 at 15:41

Obviously Amazon has more traffic, can't comment on their policies but it seems to be the same. Also depending on what you sell, Amazon will likely be competitor for you if it's successful.

shifty_uk · 9 Jan 2017 at 15:45

My company does integration work for both platforms for our ecomm clients. Which questions do you have in particular and I'll ask the team?

Through dealing with both when I need to get involved, Amazon seem a little more structured but it's all down to how vigilant the sellers are. They are just marketplaces targeting increasingly similar audiences.

The bias is generally brought about by Paypal, I believe - which is obviously a subsidiary of ebay.

diamount · 9 Jan 2017 at 15:46

shifty_uk said:
My company does integration work for both platforms for our ecomm clients. Which questions do you have in particular and I'll ask the team?

Through dealing with both when I need to get involved, Amazon seem a little more structured but it's all down to how vigilant the sellers are. They are just marketplaces targeting increasingly similar audiences.

The bias is generally brought about by Paypal, I believe - which is obviously a subsidiary of ebay.

Not anymore, Paypal was spun off and is a separate entity now.

shifty_uk · 9 Jan 2017 at 15:52

diamount said:
Not anymore, Paypal was spun off and is a separate entity now.

Ah

Kingdom34 · 9 Jan 2017 at 16:11

shifty_uk said:
My company does integration work for both platforms for our ecomm clients. Which questions do you have in particular and I'll ask the team?

Through dealing with both when I need to get involved, Amazon seem a little more structured but it's all down to how vigilant the sellers are. They are just marketplaces targeting increasingly similar audiences.

The bias is generally brought about by Paypal, I believe - which is obviously a subsidiary of ebay.

Thank you.

My main concern is the bias shown towards buyers when disputes happen with ebay, for e.g i had a buyer open a case for not receving a product, when they through comments stated they werent happy with the product, even installed it and then returned it all screwed up. I showed on the case the proof and still the outcome was that the buyer received a refund. No common sense or investigation seem to happen...i can only assume its due to the number of disputes and ebay cant control them/the outcomes without closing off in buyers favour all the time.

From a different angle, is there any stats/traffic reports i can find to show for my product that ebay would be a better format to use than ebay?

Also does amazon use predominately paypal as i believe like youve said this is also an issue when resolving disputes. Ebay has left a bad taste in my mouth somewhat.

Kingdom34 · 9 Jan 2017 at 16:12

diamount said:
Obviously Amazon has more traffic, can't comment on their policies but it seems to be the same. Also depending on what you sell, Amazon will likely be competitor for you if it's successful.

Fair point but my items are custom made, so unless Amazon directly buy from me and find out the product dimensions and make up then they probably wouldnt be able to...mind i guess this is like any product really.

tom_e · 9 Jan 2017 at 16:13

Kingdom34 said:
Also does amazon use predominately paypal as i believe like youve said this is also an issue when resolving disputes. Ebay has left a bad taste in my mouth somewhat.

Amazon don't use Paypal at all to my knowledge all payments go through Amazon themselves.

Puzzled · 9 Jan 2017 at 17:20

Kingdom34 said:
Fair point but my items are custom made, so unless Amazon directly buy from me and find out the product dimensions and make up then they probably wouldnt be able to...mind i guess this is like any product really.

Been looking at Amazon myself, only thing I'm not too happy about is that Amazon always own the listing.

So even with a custom item someone else can just tag on to your listing as a seller. Using your pictures, your reviews, your answers to customers questions and your purchased EAN code.

Now someone could just copy your listing on ebay but at least its separate. I've seen personalised goods where a customer asks a question and then get different answers from each seller with no clear idea of who made the original product in the listing.

Something to be aware of.

v0n · 9 Jan 2017 at 18:33

Additionally for most items Amazon fees are higher. Some are extremely high - up to 45%. Obviously hitting a jackpot of "fulfilled by Amazon" bulk order may seem like it's worth it, but as MonkeyMan said - you are competing for that space with others - so you will have to scale pretty quick and be very, very competitive to own that space for any amount of time.

Kingdom34 · 10 Jan 2017 at 11:33

MonkeyMan said:
Been looking at Amazon myself, only thing I'm not too happy about is that Amazon always own the listing.

So even with a custom item someone else can just tag on to your listing as a seller. Using your pictures, your reviews, your answers to customers questions and your purchased EAN code.

Now someone could just copy your listing on ebay but at least its separate. I've seen personalised goods where a customer asks a question and then get different answers from each seller with no clear idea of who made the original product in the listing.

Something to be aware of.

Hmm a very interesting factor that has massively put me off now...not what im after.

Kingdom34 · 10 Jan 2017 at 11:34

v0n said:
Additionally for most items Amazon fees are higher. Some are extremely high - up to 45%. Obviously hitting a jackpot of "fulfilled by Amazon" bulk order may seem like it's worth it, but as MonkeyMan said - you are competing for that space with others - so you will have to scale pretty quick and be very, very competitive to own that space for any amount of time.

I had a brief look at the fee's, it seems that it is higher than ebay...in many ways and then the above factor of plagarism...no wonder no one has suggested this platform to me before...another wrongun.

Vanquish-Storm · 10 Jan 2017 at 11:54

MonkeyMan said:
Been looking at Amazon myself, only thing I'm not too happy about is that Amazon always own the listing.

So even with a custom item someone else can just tag on to your listing as a seller. Using your pictures, your reviews, your answers to customers questions and your purchased EAN code.

Now someone could just copy your listing on ebay but at least its separate. I've seen personalised goods where a customer asks a question and then get different answers from each seller with no clear idea of who made the original product in the listing.

Something to be aware of.

Not entirely true, if you own the trademark to said item anybody else attaching to the listing will not be selling the same item as you (unless of course you distribute this item out to other sellers then that is just how business goes) but you can get sellers removed from the listing (ASIN as Amazon call it) by filling in an online form should anybody attempt to sell copies on that listing. Just ensure you own the brand name and that is filled in on Amazon.

Amazon and eBay seller support try to out do each other every day on who can provide the worst support to the sellers on the platform though.

If you want to sell direct to Amazon and have them sell your item on Amazon.co.uk go to Amazon Vendor Express.

Diagro · 10 Jan 2017 at 14:41

Unless you can get into the prime resellers part i wouldnt bother.

Everyone i know only uses it to buy Prime items. If amazon doesn't sell it directly or fulfills for a 3rd party seller then i dont buy it.

jimjamuk · 10 Jan 2017 at 14:56

I say go for it - my wife did the same and the sales on Amazon were 400-500% better on Amazon. Fees are higher but you just factor that in and the sales make up for that. For her the eBay side of things are now dreadful and the amount of work needing to maintain the number of sales is getting to the point of not bothering. Would be interested in how you make a load of FB sales

It seems at the moment the general INR scammer hasn't made it to Amazon in numbers so that is much less although when a claim is put in you will lose without supporting delivery proof.

Vanquish-Storm · 10 Jan 2017 at 15:05

Diagro said:
Unless you can get into the prime resellers part i wouldnt bother.

Everyone i know only uses it to buy Prime items. If amazon doesn't sell it directly or fulfills for a 3rd party seller then i dont buy it.

Anybody can use FBA. If you don't have a large warehouse space to store goods and time to ship then FBA would be perfect.

jimjamuk · 10 Jan 2017 at 15:21

Diagro said:
Unless you can get into the prime resellers part i wouldnt bother.

Everyone i know only uses it to buy Prime items. If amazon doesn't sell it directly or fulfills for a 3rd party seller then i dont buy it.

Prime members apparently around half of the userbase if you don't want to FBA your stuff - although its easy to ship items to the Amazon warehouse to be included in the Prime delivery.