Amazon v eBay - which makes more money?

Alysie

I sell lots of small things on my eBay shop. The items are fairly cheap but sell slowly, so they get re-listed every month. I also sell books,console games etc on Amazon that again sell slowly but its free to list. On Amazon the final fees are huge! But now eBay has put both its shop fee and its listing fee up and I don't know if its worth listing small, slow selling items any more. Has anyone got any advice or any thoughts on this?

chja

I put all of my books and cd's and dvd/video on Amazon and Play.com - as they don't seem to sell that well on eBay.

Although the fees are high, they do tell you what you will get after fees/postage credit, so you can pitch it at a sensible level. Neither charge a listing fee, so its no risk.

I also sell a few toys and (assuming I expect them to sell well) usually put these on eBay first and then on Amazon if they don't sell.

The downside of Amazon is that you can have hundreds of people selling the same item, so unless you go lowest price (which if everyone does forces down the price) then you can be holding stock for a while.

catmiaow

I find Amazon fees higher than ebay, but like Chja says Amazon have a lot of people selling everything. Plus you can only list with Amazon what is in their catalogue.

Up side of Amazon is they don't charge a listing fee whereas ebay do.

You don't get that much on ebay for normal clothes and DVD's unless their rare or designer clothes.

catmiaow

Also Amazon have a set price of postage for things which may not cover your actual postage costs, whereas for the time being ebay do not have a restriction on this.