A lot of businesses sell on both eBay and Amazon.
Many of them – from part-time traders up to multi-million dollar companies – have told me that eBay sales take a lot more of their time and energy than Amazon sales.
I’ve heard enough sellers say the same thing to be convinced that there’s some truth in it. But what I had never seen, until recently, were any hard numbers backing it up.
But then Web Retailer member Bigian13 posted some statistics in our forum, from his sales in January this year. His numbers don’t just back it up, they put a shocking perspective on it.
Bigian13 made around 6,300 sales across both eBay and Amazon this January. A little over half of those were through Amazon FBA. All the rest – eBay sales and merchant-fulfilled Amazon sales – were dispatched by the same people, with the same processing time, and the same shipping methods, from the same warehouse.
So eBay buyers and Amazon buyers should be having exactly the same experience, right?
Let’s take a look at the numbers.
From Bigian13’s 1,511 eBay orders, he received 732 messages, 124 “item not received” claims, 47 “not as described” claims, and 24 returns.
From his 1,375 self-fulfilled Amazon orders, he received 64 messages, one “item not received” claim, zero “not as described” claims, and one return.
Factoring in the slightly different order volumes, eBay buyers sent ten times more messages than Amazon buyers. Not only that, they made a total of 171 claims, compared to practically nothing on Amazon.
This is not a small difference. It’s huge.
Why are eBay buyers so much more demanding?
Why do so many claim their orders were not received, or not what they’re supposed to be?
eBay and Amazon are long-time rivals and the two marketplaces are often compared. But they operate on very different philosophies. eBay started out as a person-to-person auction market, with a bargaining mentality and a flea-market atmosphere.
Amazon started out as a book retailer, then continuously expanded its product categories. The third-party Amazon marketplace widens their range, encourages competition, and pushes down prices. Buying on Amazon has always been a quick and clinical business-to-consumer affair.
But that was then. Today, both eBay and Amazon are dominated by businesses selling products (not unique items) at a fixed price and with a high standard of service. Yet eBay is still a “chatty” marketplace, where buyers and sellers are encouraged to interact. Whereas on Amazon, if buyers and sellers need to communicate then something must have gone wrong.
So maybe the high volume of messages on eBay is just a glitch left over from its history? A hangover from buyers who learned how to behave when it really was like an online flea market?
Maybe so, but the bigger horror within this is not the much higher volume of messages from eBay buyers – it’s the deluge of claims.
How can you explain 171 claims of “not received” or “not as described” made by eBay buyers – compared to just one made by an Amazon buyer – on practically the same volume of orders?
I can’t think of an explanation, other than outright dishonesty.
Bigian13 investigated further. It turned out that 57% (418) of the messages from eBay buyers were to say that their item had not been received – before the buyer made an “official” claim. 68% of those were “persuaded, politely, to stop trying to rip us off”. The rest went on to pursue their claim through eBay or PayPal.
Where does this leave us?
A flea-market mentality and a chatty marketplace I can understand. eBay’s history, at 20 years, is about as long as it gets in ecommerce. A lot of habits get established in that time.
In a flea-market environment a few underhand practices can be expected, and even forgiven – if it’s against a background of generally honest buyers.
But ten times more messages than Amazon? Hundreds of buyers making false claims? Two-thirds of them dropping their claims when challenged?
To accept that is to tolerate dishonesty and theft. And that we must never do.
This post was originally published on LinkedIn as Why Are eBay Buyers 10x More Demanding Than Amazon Buyers?
Comments
It just shows ebay total disreguard, for sellers, ebay has NEVER had cared about fraudulent claims as they still get there 12% to 15% commissions, on fraudulent claims, all ebay would have to is introduce a not receive claim button, in messages and then send a message to anyone who claims that more then 5% of item are being lost, that there account is being monitored, then close the account if this continues, which is way above actual postal loses as shown by one Amazon claim on 1375 sales. Why is Ebay not prepared to protect the sellers who fund… Read more »
ebay ebay ebay, you are slowly but surely killing your own business. Be it through the yearly changes you consistently force on your sellers, or be it through the constant shifting of priorities. Buyers, sellers, top merchants, small merchants. You are trying to please everyone and just upsetting everyone, except for the dishonest, who now flock to your site like flies around a fresh pile of horse shit. You have in effect become the number one place to digitally shop lift from. As stated in the comment above, you do nothing to check how many claims a buyer has made,… Read more »
I think you would need a better breakdown of the data before drawing hard conclusions. While I find eBay customers a bit more needy in terms of questions, when looking at “lost” items versus Amazon, it all comes down to out of country shipping. My percentage of out of country shipping is much higher on eBay than on Amazon. My percentage of lost items on these orders is much higher. Amazon, by contrast, is mostly domestic and have very few lost orders. No doubt there are thieves on both platforms.
I disagree about needing a better breakdown to come to those conclusions. But ask ANY seller on which platform they get the most claims and I can virtually guarantee that the results will say ‘Ebay’* almost every time. The only thing that would change are the actual percentages.
* Sorry but I was brought up to understand that the capital letter came at the beginning of the word.
Good point Mark!
I would say that’s a pretty accurate assessment of the way things are. for the record, I’ve done a brief, very unscientific check of the past month (June) and came back with this: Sales Ebay, (Amazon in brackets): 231 (192) Messages: 796 (2) Returns: 36 (2) No that isn’t a typo, THIRTY-SIX returns from 231 sales in June. That’s higher than average and I do operate in the notoriously difficult mobile phone sector, but I sell only new stock and take great care in describing the stock accurately. Missing items claims are a lot rarer now because quite simply I… Read more »
eBay lost their better sellers 10 years ago. Those sellers went to their websites and contributed to sell directly. Others started to make major contribution with an intact in commerce in those years, a website that did not gauge their profits- Amazon. People would shop Amazon for it was not EBay. Anyone who was feed up with eBay would buy from anyone other than eBay, so Amazon had it easy since it was not eBay. Other websites did grow and can credit eBay for handing them customers without referral bonuses. Yet Amazon was the big benefactor.
If you are getting that many claims and messages you are doing something very, VERY wrong! Please post a link to that store so we can go and see what the problem might be. Those numbers are unacceptable, and if this store doesn’t make major changes, and fast, they are in real danger of being suspended. What is their feedback rate? What type of items are they selling? Whenever these statistics are happening it is always for the following reasons: 1. No real tracking numbers being posted to Site 2. No prompt and comprehensive communications from seller on an hourly… Read more »
You sound like an eBay shill, and without context, your data is worthless. Is your product high-value? What price range do you sell within? Can you substantiate your claims in any way that is reliable?
I’ve sold on both platforms nearly since inception of each, and I find the story details and others posting as to the differences of eBay vs Amazon buyers to be credible based on more than a decade of my own experience.
Your examples simply sound like a story.
The story seldom changes when ECHOKE is mentioned.All we once upon a time sellers found that Ebay/Paypal did not make changes the past 10 years to benefit the seller.To participate and think you were going to save or make more money is a false statement.From 7 day returns to 30 day returns is one example of the hoops you had to jump through to get discounts.How many of us buy an item,new or used via mail,open it and take up to 30 days to decide if it is ok ? I sold brand name pocket knives for 12 years and… Read more »
Ebay shill alert!!!!!
After 20 years with Ebay and 8 with Amazon, my opinion is: Amazon has infinitely higher Traffic, producing many more Buyers, Sales, & Profits! Amazon never throttles your traffic, hides your ads, or limits your selling ability Amazon buyers LOVE to buy & return things just for the fun of it, returns usually perfect Amazon buyers are 10x more mature & professional at all times Amazon Prime buyers ABUSE the returns process (lie) 50+% of the time in order to get a free return Amazon very rarely changes their platform or the policies except to make it better. Amazon very… Read more »
I agree with most you said and more importantly I agree that we need to unionized!
RE: Saturated markets and spoiled consumers Agree with you on this one. The influx of more people into online selling causes saturation and undercutting. While this is good for consumers price-wise, ultimately it’s not good for everyone, including buyer. The abundance of selection and bottom prices changes their behaviour. You could tell that today’s commerce is coupon-driven and there are buyers who feel entitled to free products. I think I am seeing what I call “supply exceeds demand” where margins get split more as supply grows turning pieces of a commerce pie into breadcrumbs. I saw this happening with Google… Read more »
Sold on eBay since 1999, sold on Amazon for 6 years. Both are different and both have their advantages. Nearly never had customer disatisfactions on both platforms and those that did are mostly buyers making unwise decisions. If your not aware of why the vast differences there is with these two platforms them you have not taken the time to fully analyze why those problems escalate. Sellers should invest their time in making their listing impossible for customers having issues of disatisfaction and embracing shipments as Amazon does. Amazon’s role is that the delivery is the sole most important feature… Read more »
LOL. If ebay did have “shills” I can promise you they are not Americans and could never write like that. I’m also pretty sure no shill would write unkind words about ebay. You clearly didn’t read my post. At all. Of course I can substantiate everything I posted. I wouldn’t be a member of WebRetailer and take time to write my experiences if I didn’t actually have them. We have sold in virtually every category from $2.99 – $2000. I even sold my Toyota 4×4 on Ebay. Overall we had a good experience. It has gone significantly downhill in the… Read more »
After selling on both platforms, I have to admit ebay treats sellers better in one regard over amazon. For an item not received complaint, all ebay requires is a tracking # showing as delivered. When I have buyers open a case to complain that they never received an item but the tracking shows as delivered, one call to ebay and the case is closed in my favor. So long scammers. Amazon doesn’t care it the tracking shows as delivered. With amazon, if someone tries to pull the same stunt the only thing that will protect you is a signature confirmation.… Read more »