Amazon vs. eBay vs. Shopify

AMAZON | EBAY | SHOPIFY

Another battle of the eCommerce platforms. This time we are diving in between Amazon vs. eBay vs. Shopify. All three platforms are great to start an eCommerce business. However, each have their pros and cons. We personally like Amazon the most, followed by Shopify, and eBay. Let's break it down between the three platforms.

AMAZON
Selling on Amazon, there's a monthly cost of $40 for a professional account. It's $0 to list items, so you can list as many as you want. There's a charge of 8-15% seller fees for most categories. You can already sell on pre-existing products (also known as piggybacking) and can scale your business FAST. But, you can also build a brand and have brand recognition. Building a brand becomes a long term sustainable business where you can scale your business HUGE in the long run. There's no need to spend money on ads when piggybacking since the items are already selling which makes it very attractive and lucrative for inexperienced entrepreneurs looking to generate income in the first 30 days of a new venture. Amazon is one of the biggest eCommerce platforms out there, and over 300,000 third party sellers. Third party sellers alone generated US $53.76 billion last year. It has a wide audience and is the most popular platform that customers shop on. Endless opportunities to start your eCommerce business with  selling on Amazon.

EBAY
With eBay, you create your own listings and as of 2019, can technically appear on the same listing as another - similar to amazon. However, every time you create a listing it'll be 10-30 cents for each listing you put up. There are seller fees of between 11-15% depending on the category you're listing in. There's no brand recognition even if you're building a brand, until a lot of time has passed and you’ve exhausted a lot of efforts into building a brand on eBay. eBay allows you to sell as an individual or as a store. It's a great platform, but over the years we've noticed that eBay has become a lot more strict and a lot more hoops to jump through. It's a lot slower to scale than Amazon. eBay generated US $10.8 billion last year, while Amazon generates over $200 billion. Still great opportunities to start your eCommerce business.

SHOPIFY
An amazing platform that you have 100% control over. You create your own store to your liking (but also keep in mind of your potential customers and your niche). You create your own listings whether it's a niche store or you sell everything and anything. Shopify has low fees (under 3%). However, you would need to do your own marketing and advertisements to scale your business. We do teach you how to do this with zero ad cost in our Shopify Legacy program! You can build a long term sustainable brand with this platform and method and the major plus side is it’s all in your control. Since June 2019 there's been more than 380,000 - now there's more than 800,000 people using Shopify. Last year, Shopify earned $1.578 billion in revenue. Since Shopify is just a host and not a marketplace, there sales have nothing to do with your potential - here, you create your own potential. There's a lot of opportunity using their platform, and they are growing fast!

Personally, after all is said and done, Amazon is the BEST place to start an eCommerce business. Amazon is slightly more difficult to learn compared to its lesser alternative - eBay, but the most lucrative platform to be selling on period. This is all just tidbit information on each platform and how they're doing as well. There is a lot more that goes into making these businesses successful, but this is just a few details that should help you understand, and make a decision on where you should start, and where you want to end up long term. Whichever path you decide to take, we will be here to help and guide you.

WRITTEN BY: Leslie Lazaro