Coming from Online retailing Amazon vs eBay. Selling on Amazon or selling on eBay? Which is the best option for online vendors (Part 1)

• Fulfillment by Amazon:

Since the beginning, Amazon invested heavily on automated fulfillment and distribution centers. This is one of the main reasons eBay has been able to expand faster (geographically) than Amazon. eBay is a 100% online business while Amazon has to invest time and resources to build its fulfillment centers. Anyway, coming back to the point of view of an online vendor this is a very important difference between the two platforms: Amazon offers the possibility to outsource the fulfillment (storing, picking, packing and shipping) while eBay doesn’t. Amazon calls this service “Fulfillment by Amazon FBA”

• Return policy / Guarantee:

This is one of the most important differences between the two platforms: Amazon has a full guarantee designed to protect the buyer while eBay does not. This might not seem too important but it is on the long run, because it’s a way to autoselect the kind of buyers and sellers you want to have in your marketplace. Amazon’s guarantee is the “A-to-Z Guarantee protection”.

The guarantee obliges any seller to refund or resend the item to the buyer in the event of a claim. This is designed to offer confidence to buyers so they know that they anything they buy on Amazon or from an Amazon third party seller will be as described. Sellers that don’t comply with Amazon’s minimum ratios of client service, by failing consistently to refund/resend items to buyers eventually will not be allowed to sell on Amazon. This means that only good quality service sellers will be allowed to remain selling on Amazon. What Amazon is doing with this is very clear: It’s eliminating one of the most important reasons that kept buyers from buying online, which is fraud/forgery. eBay does not function like this at all, eBay is not responsible of what the seller does or sells. This is why there have been so many claims of false luxury goods of the most prestigious brands being sold on eBay but the problem continues. The way buyers can penalize bad sellers in eBay is through reputation (giving a bad feedback) or through eBay’s Resolution Center which depending on the case and the allegations, can take some time.

All this explanation of the way each platform tries to protect its buyers from forgery/fraud is just to show you how it directly affects the sellers. Sellers of fake items or items with a very low quality won’t go to Amazon because they know that they will have to pay the buyers in case of claims or they will be kicked out of the marketplace. The outcome of the guarantee, besides obviously protecting buyers, is that Amazon is self-selecting good quality sellers for its platform.



SELLERS Perspective

Amazon

eBay

Fees

MORE EXPENSIVE

- Listing Fee: Low for volume

- Commisions: High 15%

Better for high volume // High rotation items

CHEAPER

- Listing Fee: Low for individual listings

- Commisions: Low 8%

Better for High price // Low rotation items

Format

Fixed Price Format

Fixed price + Auction

Auction: Better for Antiques and Collectibles. Ebay moving into Fixed Price direction

Average sale Price

BETTER

Buyers pay more on average for the same items

WORSE

More price competition

Payment Methods

LESS OPTIONS BUT EASIER TO MANAGE

If Amazon can’t collect the payment, the seller doesn’t have a sale, and the item remains listed.

MORE OPTIONS BUT MORE COSTLY

eBay sellers can accept PayPal, money orders, cashier’s checks or cash. However, they’re responsible for managing collections, which means investing more time and labor into each transaction.

Return Policy

WORSE

Tight claim and quality control. If many clients solicit returns, they can be kicked out of Amazon

BETTER

Not obliged to return. The only penalty could be a bad feedback

Shipping / Fulfillment

BETTER

Amazon fixes the shipping credit, per category, regardless of what actually the shipping cost ends up being

WORSE

Seller fixes shipping price, but supervised by eBay

(to avoid overcharging)

Client Follow Up / Marketing Info

WORSE

Sellers are not allowed use the contact information for follow up marketing actions. This is a big setback for any seller because in each transaction, the seller is selling an item, but the customer is acquired by Amazon, not by the seller.

MUCH BETTER

Billing information is managed by the seller itself. The seller can decide what to do in terms of follow up marketing actions. The long term relationship will be between the seller and the client, not between the platform and the client.

Conclusions and final thoughts

• Although in general Amazon seems to have better quality of service and a more options for sellers, It’s more expensive and doesn’t allow follow up marketing actions; two things that are not trivial for sellers. In other words, It might be better… but at a cost.

• The other very important point is that the clients of both platforms tend to be loyal to their marketplace, which means that if you’re a seller on eBay and decide to start selling on Amazon, you’ll reach millions of NEW customers. Sell on both platforms, you have nothing to lose, only millions of new customers to reach.

• As a final conclusion, I could argue that both platforms should be used only to generate incremental sales, and not become the only source of income. To be so dependent on only one sales channel, has always proved to too risky….



By: Pedro Neira

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Finding suppliers of clothing that are perfect for your requirements, no matter whether you are an ebay-specific shop, general ecommerce retailer or offline reseller can be a daunting prospect. A great way to start your hunt for quality garments suppliers is by using ‘Googling’ the search engines with highly related search terms. This is fast and will bring up a lot of companies to research. Ebay is also a great source of information. Just remember at all times to make sure what you’re looking at are real companies by checking reviews, contacting the companies directly, and other measures like testing out cheap orders with them, asking for quotes or proposals, complete with prices, any discounts, delivery terms. Also look at the supplier’s/ wholesaler’s financial position and performance. If any problems exist it is often a great idea to ask how they were overcome. Defensive and uncooperative resolutions, rather than prompt and helpful outcomes show suppliers that may be worth avoiding.

When looking for the best suppliers it helps that you have some idea what separates average operators from the those at the top of their game. Remember that when dealing with suppliers of any kind you must always keep in mind prices, delivery times, maintenance, payment modes, quality and additional services they provide. No just your run of the mill suppliers, the best wholesalers tend to cover the following:

•    Clothing wholesalers with 10+ years of business/ experience, well known and respected (family or corporate are both fine!) in the fashion/ retail world

•    Great customer service, 24/7, specialist knowledge in fashion retailing, tips on beating fierce competition and running and marketing online clothing stores is helpful. Also, a willingness to source or offer advice on unstocked apparel is very useful!

•    Professional dropship service that has a range of up-to-the-minute options e.g. the current idea of ‘custom’ clothing/ packaging labelling/ graphics – all designated by you the reseller

•    Massive and ever revised/ expanding garment selections – rare or unusual through to popular and brand name sellers, as well as many larger profit products

•    Wholesalers should be able to keep costs to you at a minimum by such things as their suppliers offering the wholesalers favourable prices on products and their delivery. In fact, believe it or not, if your communication with them has been favourable, and you have helped them make a reasonable amount of money suppliers have been known to bail out the reseller when difficult demands are made on them by the reseller’s customers!

•    Super savings on bulk orders e.g. up to 90% off standard wholesale pricing.

•    Stock closeout clothing, wholesale clothing and off price apparel

•    Open invitation to turn up at the wholesaler’s warehouse at any time unannounced (during working hours) to ask questions or have a look at any of their products/ showrooms, and to order. Often you can get faster deliveries on orders this way

•    Wholesalers ideally check their suppliers before recommending/ selling any products to resellers. The best is where dedicated review teams are set up who test delivery, general product availability, customer service etc

•    Wholesalers ideally provide a ratings system for suppliers they list, commented on by their reseller clients. Retailers can then easily avoid poor performers.

•    There should be an ability to search a clothing wholesaler’s website for items, categories or companies efficiently.

•    Comparison tables for a variety of search levels and advice on particularly effective methods of selling certain types of products is also highly useful

•    Sources of products should come from a wide variety of places e.g. other wholesalers (transparency is important here!), manufacturers, liquidators and dropshippers

•    Clothing should be easily shipped internationally, suppliers should be globally represented

•    Wholesalers should be able to sell at very low, or zero minimum order quantities. This is important due to not everyone having the buying power of huge retail giants. Website functions that enable you to team up with other retailers to make use of larger discounts when purchasing can be very effective

•    Great returns and/ or exchange policies from clothing wholesalers can help massively with reseller customer confidence

As can be seen, many factors exist that show a quality and keen supplier willing to make those powerful extra steps to help you. If you’re in a relationship that is mutually beneficial there will be less of a question over their efforts to help you succeed. Any successes promote helpful behaviours, providing of course all sides take action. Locating and then teaming up with individual wholesalers/ dropshippers may take some time, the best deals tend to come to fruition over the longer-term.

ALL of the benefits listed above can be found by simply joining one of the internets largest wholesaler communities known as ‘Salehoo.com’. This involves a once off membership fee. This fee allows this wholesaler/ dropshipper list provider to be unbiased and independent with relation to what products they stock, ensuring product ranges are extensive and very reasonable prices are adopted. Online wholesale communities allow you the reseller to find quality products from reliable suppliers without the need for very costly trial and error.

With Salehoo you only really risk your time being wasted looking around their members area deciding if it is for you. As this is a huge and highly regarded products sourcing professional, who’s services you can attain in literally minutes from now through downloads, using their easily navigable product website you can find this information out in no time. Additionally there is a FULL no questions asked money back guarantee for up to 8wks, financially you are risking very little!



By: Steve Grzywacz

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Ebay is a great place to sell items and make a lot of extra money or make it your full time job. The site offers a lot of useful features to help you sell, such as the sellers tool section where you can find listing tolls and tips and trick to selling and being successful on ebay. Also it can be useful to search ebay success stories and see what items different people have sold, you also get an idea of what it takes to be a success.

One of the best items to sell on ebay is clothing, this is because it is something that everybody uses, it makes people feel good and everybody wants a great deal. In the clothing arena is it important to have a reliable supplier and one you can trust. There are a lot of suppliers that sell online but be careful a lot of them are based in China and other places that buying form them can be treacherous.

Some problems you can have is that you are dealing with someone out of the country and usually you do not have any recourse if they do not send you items, or even worse they may give you a good deal on name brand merchandise and they turn out to be fakes. This will cause you many problems with customs and with ebay itself because they have a program called VERO, which works with actual manufactures in spotting fake merchandise and removing it form their site.

The VERO program is a major part of ebay’s success with having name brand merchandise on their website which is verified authentic, it protects the buyer.

So remember find a good supplier that is in the US to be safe, always look for someone who has name brand clothing because that sells much better than no named item. Also make sure that the wholesale supplier you are buying from can prove that the items are authentic and offer a guarantee for their products.



By: Bryan Burbank

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Often it seems people have become more used to and they are resilient with the goods or services what the market is providing for them. You have no choice and you are stick to fit your bills from among the ones stocked in the stores. A number of online stores are serving your needs with their wide range of product line but you hardly find a product seems to be tailored especially for you. However such choices of the general customer are not hidden and many of the market players have read this pulse. The emergence of a local crafter as Etsy.com is great revolution in this field which has currently associated near about 200000 local handicrafts units and serving the entire market with its best tailored products.

The rise of Etsy.com is not a single result of such demands. Some other players are too in the market with these services. And the success of such online stores simply refers a drastic change among the customers’ attitude which now prefer the best tailored product for their needs. The launch of worldofgoodthing.com by EBay can be simply seen as the potential of such demands.

Now it is clear that customers today has fed-up with branded products and wishes better tailored products from the local manufactured for their different needs. The time of 90s is normally seen as the beginning of brand mania which traveled a long route but it seems to become tinnier by time as people has changed their mind set completely.

A big transaction of nearly 50 million by Etsy.com this year shows the potential of this trend that made this huge sell only for homemade products manufactured by those 200000 craftsmen.

The most noticeable fact with these online stores is that their craftsmen are much talented and products produced by them no doubt compete well with those branded ones. According to a market expert, ” now people have better options to find the products in way they wishes and they have that much freedom to talk to the producers of which products they are using”.



By: Amrendra Kr. Singh

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With the internet, finding bargains for discounted clothing and apparel has never been easier. Wholesale products are available at your finger tips like never before.  Some of the savviest shoppers and small businesses are buying up gobs of wholesale apparel and wholesale clothing at fast rates and making a lot of money doing this easily through the internet.  The reason this is working so well for so many small businesses is simple. Buying in bulk saves on gas and shipping charges when getting clothing and apparel to your door.  Plus, you are buying at below dealer pricing which improves your resale capability even more!

The great thing is that you are not limited to a small selection of products. You can now find wholesale discounts on brand name clothing for men, women, juniors and children!  Our research has shown that you can find brand name apparel at costs as low as $2 per garment! This gives many online retailers that ability to pull large margins of profit from their investment.  With ebay, craigslist and many other online resale sites booming, it is not hard to double or trible your investment with a little effort!

There are literally hundreds of thousands of online clothing retailers, however there are only several hundred online “TRUE” wholesale clothing and apparel vendors.  I am going to show you how to find these sources and capitalize on the benefits from being a customer on their web sites.  In order to find these resources you must search the internet, however you have to be savvy in the way you search. If you were to just search for sale items or any simple search term like that you will find retailers. I want you to perform searches for products that include the keyword wholesale or wholesaler.  This will bring you some of the top websites for what you are looking for. Go ahead and search yahoo for buy wholesale apparel. This will bring up a large number of sites that specialize in selling you discounted items you can purchase online. Most all wholesalers have inventory in stock and ready to ship almost immediately.

There are some words of wisdom I want to offer when shopping online for discounted clothing. You must read any terms associated with products and purchases. Many wholesalers do not have the time to check every item to ensure nothing is wrong with it.  I encourage you to call any company you are interested in buying from so that you can get a solid understanding of their policies and the clothing or apparel you are purchasing.

Additionally, there are other ways to search for these products. You can use comparison shopping sites to find bargains by using the same key terms I gave you earlier. These web sites offer you the ability to see reviews of companies, obtain total costs with S&H and more.  Not a bad choice for bargain hunters looking for a safe bet.  Hopefully you find what you are looking for and learn a lot about the wholesale industry.



By: Joel Mclaughlin

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Ebay has long been known as the top online auction site. One of the leading categories for ebay auctions would be clothing and apparel for the following popular categories; childrens, mens and womens.

Many people have wanted to capitalize on the potential that ebay offers selling clothing online through ebay, however they haven’t found a good supplier or wholesaler to do so.  Many people first start by cleaning out their clothes from their dressers and closets only to run out of things to sell. Sure another option would be to start venturing out to garage sales to obtain products, however with gas prices lately this is becoming an innefective method.

We have come to realize that the best method is to find companies that sell wholesale apparel and wholesale clothing in bulk at large discounts. Ultimately you want to become an efficient ebay seller, and finding a wholesaler will give you the opportunity to buy quality items at great discounts. Another great thing about buying wholesale mens, womens and childrens clothes is that you can get items that are brand new for garage sale prices (or even lower).

Imagine buying a lot of 100 brand name as well as brand new items for less than 1 or 2 dollars per item. This is entirely possible and smart ebay sellers have been capitalizing on this sort of thing for years, and succeeding doing it!  One of the troubles is that finding a good and reliable source is not always easy. We recommend that you search google, yahoo or msn for the following terms; wholesale apparel, wholesale clothing, wholesale clothes, wholesale mens apparel, wholesale womens apparel, etc. (you get the idea)

With the vast selection available on the internet and the numerous supply of clothing vendors, it is only a matter of time before you land on your own appropriate and quality source!

Some people wonder how those top power ebay sellers can sell thousands of items a month. Well, there are some great tools available for you to accomplish this, a free one is ebay’s turbo lister.  Additionally if you really want to sell tons of items on ebay, you must be able to purchase easily and in bulk to meet the demand for your listings. Therefore buying a wholesale lot or wholesale pallet of clothing is a great idea. These lots and pallets usually include a variety of identical items that can save you time in preparing ebay ads!

Additionally, when selling on ebay you must understand that your product name must include major key terms in the product title or product name itself. This is how ebay places you to the top of the rankings. Below you will find a great resource for wholesale mens clothing, childrens apparel and womens clothes.



By: Joel Mclaughlin

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With the increasing cost of basic commodity, the most economical way to shop wardrobe and daily outfit is to turn to shopping for wholesale apparel. It is incredibly worthwhile in this day and age with the economic slowdown. Savings on jeans and brand name clothing are more and more common with the tight budget of today’s average shopper especially if you like buying clothing and apparel.

The advantage for grabs is that Merchandisers offer wholesale apparel huge discount on bulk items. This is especially true if the wholesaler holds huge inventory of a certain item like the latest fashion in wholesale jeans, wholesale apparel, wholesale brand name clothing and the like. Wholesalers are willing to unload them at a price even below wholesale cost. On top of that, these are brand new items with in original packages. So buy them for personal use, gift or resell on places like eBay. Either way, there’s certainly huge advantage buying wholesale clothing and apparel.

The increasing appeal of used clothing and outlet stores appears to increase popularity among wholesale clothing shoppers. The assortment of styles offered by wholesaler can easily compete with the retail stores offering the same merchandise. A savings of up to 80% can be found by researching and shopping online.

Some sellers of wholesale women’s apparel have popular name brand apparel at discounts of up to 80% off and some offer free shipping. This can mean massive savings to the consumer and boost the popularity of wholesale shopping. Wholesale women’s apparel stores offer many different styles and prices on clothing and apparel. Among the most enjoyable experience shopping wholesale is the hunt for the greatest deal and finding ones appropriate size. Finding such a great deal like this is hard to find specially if you are shopping from outlet stores.

Most women finds special piece of wholesale clothing and apparel they so desire by going online for wholesale jeans and brand name clothing. Many wholesale clothing and wholesale apparel stores offers all kinds of enticing offering of discounts to get buyers to buy. These wholesalers are eager to get wholesale jeans, brand name clothing, tops, dresses and everything they have to move to keep the business rolling. And this works to the consumer’s advantage. They get the same item from the retail store for a fraction of the cost.

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By: Wholefash

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To begin with I’ve bought and used both directory’s, they’re legitimate and back up their claims of having thousands of trustworthy suppliers and providing them to their members. In addition they also have brilliant support and security and I recommend both of these services to any serious eBayer or e-commerce site owner.

Worldwide Brands

World Wide Brands is the largest and most respected wholesale directory on the internet. It has over 9000 suppliers and is the only directory which has a partnership with eBay. World Wide Brands also inspects all of its suppliers to make sure their not scams so you can have peace of mind when purchasing any products from their suppliers.

As well as this sounds there’s a lot more to Worldwide brands than the thousands of suppliers. The best feature of World Wide Brands for me is the market research tool, and they also have a video tutorial showing you how to use and maximize its potential. This tool shows you what to sell, what the current supply and demand is on a product, what keywords you need to use in order for customers to find the product and an overall verdict on how successful you’ll be if you decide to sell the product. It’s amazing the amount of information that’s provided to you in a click of a button.

Every businessman knows how important market research is and this tool literally saves you hours of manual labor.

Another feature I love about World Wide Brands is all the information they provide for their customers. EBooks, video tutorials, forums, the amount of free advice and bonuses, there’s a lot of useful information for you to take in, also a lot of the information they provide is crucial for you to know if you’re a newbie on ebay or just starting off in making money online, so be sure to take full advantage if you become a member.

Salehoo

It’s not hard to see why so many people can’t decide which supplier they should be joining because Salehoo also offers a great service. It might not have as many suppliers but it does have more than enough for you to find whatever your looking to buy. With over 5000 suppliers and categories ranging from Branded Clothing to Consumer Electronics whatever you’re looking for they’ve got it.

Salehoo’s customer support is great I’ve said it before and ill say it again, their very professional. Ill give you an example, I once couldn’t find the product I wanted to sell and emailed them for some help, and a couple of days later they sent me an email back with a list of 5 suppliers for the product I was looking for. So if you’re having trouble finding a product just give them an email and they will do the research for you, try find another directory which does that.

Salehoo has also got some cool tools as well. Use the market research lab to find out how the competition on ebay is for your product and find out if it’s in demand. There’s no point in selling a product that nobody’s going to by, use this tool to help you decide if you should sell a particular product or not.

One more important feature of Salehoo is the forum. I use the forum to investigate sites which look a little too good to be true by seeing what other members are saying about it before I purchase any of its products. Salehoo also has a rating system for every supplier so you know who to trust.

The Problem

They both have different suppliers, which means you could be paying more for the item you’re looking for or losing out on a better deal if you don’t know what directory has what supplier, and for what price. The only way of knowing that is to buy both. They also both differ with results in regards to how many suppliers they have for an item. For example, I searched for some products in both directories and although Worldwide brands has more suppliers than Salehoo overall, Salehoo actually had at least 8 more suppliers than worldwide brands for this particular product.

You want your business to succeed, you have to buy stock and you have to invest in your business with time and money.

Salehoo is $67 and Wolrdwide brands is $299.

Is it worth the money?

Absolutely. $370 altogether for Salehoo and Worldwide brands is not as much as it seems, these are the two largest and most respected directories on the internet and for good reason. If you’re serious about making money you’ll see this as a great opportunity. You’re going to be using them for the rest of your life. You know you have the best support, you have the best contacts, information, technology, new information and techniques in marketing, business entrepreneurs and ebay millionaires giving you expert advice, holding your hand and walking you through everything you need to know about being successful online. There’s forums with people in the same boat as you are to talk to and exchange ideas with, suppliers half way across the globe brought right to your computer screens for you to contact directly.

You really have no excuse not to succeed with either one of these, ideally you’ll want to buy both directories and get off to a flying start, have an advantage with your other ebay members and blast the competition. Or at least be on equal terms with them. Because let’s be honest there’s going to be more than one ebayer right now who has both of these directories and is using them to their maximum potential, they want the best for their business and so should you. If you can’t quite afford to invest in both directories right now than do yourself a favour and at least invest in one. Salehoo or Worlwide Brands it’s up to you.

For more information on Worldwide Brands click here Worldwide Brands and if you want to check out Salehoo this link will take you there Salehoo Theres a 56 day Money Back Guarantee on Salehoo and theres also a money back guarantee on Worldwide Brands, if you dont like any for watever reason they will give you a full refund.



By: Naveed

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