Amazon, the eBay Alternative - A Great Small Business Idea

by Anonymous G. Seller
(Washington DC)

I sell used books, CDs, LP records online. These items are mine: its garage-sale style as opposed to professional-store-with-inventory style.

It used to be that eBay was pretty much the only game in town, but it is so expensive to sell on eBay now. They have managed to nickel-and-dime the small seller with increasing fees -- when all is added up, between listing fees and final sale fees -- not to mention the PayPal fees (and eBay owns PayPal)-- you can easily find you have paid eBay 20-35% of your item's final sale price. eBay is now better for the volume, "big-box" seller.

I changed to Amazon. Here are the advantages:
- There are no front-end fees. You pay a listing fee, just as you would for eBay, but it is only charged to you after you sell your item. If you don’t sell your item, you do not pay the listing fee.
- The time that the item remains on the Amazon website is much longer. When I list on eBay, I choose the least expensive option, a 1-week auction. With Amazon, officially the listing period is 60 days, but I have items that have not sold within 60 days and they are still available through Amazon. This is very important for someone who is selling items that are not, hot. I’m not selling late-model electronics; I’m selling old books? They need time and they do sooner or later sell.
- The way Amazon charges you, the seller, is very clear and straightforward. It’s true that they break it up every which way, but it’s not so complicated that you can’t figure it out and do the maths early on before you agree the price.
It’s approximately $1 to list plus another closing fee that is approximately $1.50, plus 15% of the price you are asking. So I know that a book listing for $10 is going to cost me around $4.00 in fees to Amazon.

If you have read carefully, you might ask why I would prefer to sell on Amazon if they are charging me 40% of a $10 sale when I wrote earlier that eBay might charge as little as 20%.

First, I don’t pay on Amazon if I don’t sell. On eBay, I must pay something even if I don’t sell. And if it does not sell in 7 days, I have to re-list, paying a listing fee each time I re-list.

Second, I resent the shell game of eBay fees: statements like 8.75% of the initial $25.00 ($2.19), plus 3.50% of the remaining closing value balance($25.01 - $1,000.00)?Confuse me and make me think eBay is charging me more than it should, while trying to disguise that fact. Amazon seems more honest. Even if it isn’t, it seems that way to me.

Third, you pretty much have to use PayPal on eBay. Gone are the days when you could opt out of PayPal and wait for the buyer to mail you a money order. If you use PayPal, you pay a fee. eBay owns PayPal.
Its double-dipping and they charge me approximately 5% on a PayPal transaction in addition to the fees eBay charges me for listing, and the eBay final value fees on a sale. Amazon does not charge for their electronic payment transactions. End of story. Let me repeat myself. Amazon does not charge you, the seller, for its highly efficient, very secure, very reliable, electronic funds transaction service.

Lastly, the higher your selling price on Amazon, the lower the percentage of fees. For example, if I can sell an item for $25 on Amazon, then the listing fees of approximately $2.50 plus 15% of $25 item price ($3.75) = $6.25. The total fees are now only 25% of the selling price.

It’s easy to list items on Amazon, and I highly recommend it. You don’t have to create your own web store, you don’t have to pay for marketing or SEO improvement ? Amazon is the 1000 pound canary that can go toe-to-toe with the eBay 1000 pound gorilla. The canary sounds sweeter (to me).

Anonymous Garage Seller