eBay Or Amazon?

15 years ago

Hi,

Both, of course! When you focus on niche subjects, you'll always find Amazon products that go with it, and you can give a live eBay feed for the same keywords. That has the extra advantage that the content of such a page keeps changing - SE's love that.

Yours, warriorly, Ed

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Michael Mayhew

15 years ago

Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. You are getting very sleepy

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Shevd

15 years ago

If you are just going to focus on one , I would say ebay.

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lcombs

15 years ago

Hmmmm....

One vote for both. One vote for eBay. And, One vote for Amazon.

Back where I started...

The problem with using both is, you're splitting your sales.

Amazon has a graduating commission rate. The more sales you make, the higher the commissions.

But, eBay pays $25 for each new sign up.

And, using both creates too many choices for your customers.

I'm leaning toward Amazon because...

1. They have a better looking page.
2. I think they may convert better. (not sure about that though)

LC

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nichewebstrategies

15 years ago

Originally Posted by lcombs

Hmmmm....

One vote for both. One vote for eBay. And, One vote for Amazon.

Back where I started...

The problem with using both is, you're splitting your sales.

Amazon has a graduating commission rate. The more sales you make, the higher the commissions.

But, eBay pays $25 for each new sign up.

And, using both creates too many choices for your customers.

I'm leaning toward Amazon because...

1. They have a better looking page.
2. I think they may convert better. (not sure about that though)

LC

You should include both and here is the reason why. If you are doing just one, then you are leaving money on the table.

Case in point, I put together a TaxCut 2008 vs. TurboTax 2008 product review site. The main part of the site was promoting Amazon, but I also included eBay auctions as a "Hot Deals" section of the page.

In some cases, I made money off the same person because they purchased the software on Amazon and bought other things on eBay.

Don't go overboard with tons of auctions showing. Just tweak your eBay feed to show auctions that are lower than the price at Amazon and I promise you will get click through to eBay.

Who knows, they might buy several other items once they are there and if they are a new signup, then you have the opportunity to make as much as $40 a sign up.

Good Luck!

-Brad

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lcombs

15 years ago

Originally Posted by nichewebstrategies

You should include both and here is the reason why. If you are doing just one, then you are leaving money on the table.

Case in point, I put together a TaxCut 2008 vs. TurboTax 2008 product review site. The main part of the site was promoting Amazon, but I also included eBay auctions as a "Hot Deals" section of the page.

In some cases, I made money off the same person because they purchased the software on Amazon and bought other things on eBay.

Don't go overboard with tons of auctions showing. Just tweak your eBay feed to show auctions that are lower than the price at Amazon and I promise you will get click through to eBay.

Who knows, they might buy several other items once they are there and if they are a new signup, then you have the opportunity to make as much as $40 a sign up.

Good Luck!

-Brad

You make a good point Brad.

However,

Aren't buyers as likely to buy other products from Amazon as well?
Or, might I get more "$40" sales by using only eBay/
And, isn't the "rule of thumb" more choices = fewer sales?

Am I over-thinking this?

I guess the thing to do is...

Put Amazon one one page, eBay on one page, both on one page and see what happens.

The sad part is, if I could find a decent dropshipper this wouldn't be an issue and I would have a much higher profit margin :-(

Thanks for the input guys.

LC

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nichewebstrategies

15 years ago

Originally Posted by lcombs

You make a good point Brad.

However,

Aren't buyers as likely to buy other products from Amazon as well?
Or, might I get more "$40" sales by using only eBay/
And, isn't the "rule of thumb" more choices = fewer sales?

Am I over-thinking this?

I guess the thing to do is...

Put Amazon one one page, eBay on one page, both on one page and see what happens.

The sad part is, if I could find a decent dropshipper this wouldn't be an issue and I would have a much higher profit margin :-(

Thanks for the input guys.

LC

Yes, they are likely to buy from Amazon as well, but the cookie life for Amazon is only one day where eBay is 7 days. Chances are you can make additional sales in the 7 days.

I've seen a huge increase in eBay sales due to the economy (folks think they are getting better deals on eBay is my guess) so maybe the key is giving the customer several choices on the product they wanting to buy.

I use PPC to promote most of my sites, so I use both to up my conversion rates.

Of course nothing takes the place of real world experience, so like you said, just put an assortment of pages up and see which ones perform the best and focus on those sites.

-Brad

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digitalproductreporter

15 years ago

depends on the product page. I'd rather buy a new big screen tv from amazon however ebay has a better selection when I'm buying a metal detector.

go with the one who has the strengths matching your topic

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lcombs

15 years ago

OK...

My initial reaction was eBay. First indicator.

digitalproductreporter makes a good point about eBay and the economy and the product.

Brad makes a good point about the 7 day cookie.

So, now I'm leaning back to ebay....

Test and track, test and track...

LC

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Trieu

15 years ago

I know there a are few affiliate scripts that work with ebay, or a combination of ebay and amazon. Big MIke is selling similar script which will make things easier for you when setting up your site

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bannor32 15 years ago

I've tried both EPN and the Amazon Associate program and have had much better results with Ebay. The best method I've found is to set up a Wordpress blog, and install the PHPBay Pro plugin. This injects live Ebay listings into your blog and is very customizable by keyword, negative keywords, number of listings, columns or rows etc. A very powerful tool if used properly. Providing you update your blog occasionally you will avoid the "thin content" slap that Google gives BANS sites, and you will swiftly be enjoying a nice passive income.
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cryptone24

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Teo

I know there a are few affiliate scripts that work with ebay, or a combination of ebay and amazon. Big MIke is selling similar script which will make things easier for you when setting up your site

Do you have a link to this ebay script?

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Samuel Lee

15 years ago

Some good points so far, I'd go for both! When you're aiming at niche subjects, you'll most certainly find Amazon products that are associated with it, and you can give a live eBay at definite try for the same keywords. Ebay has the additional skill that the content keeps changing on its respective page, which is great for SEO. Hope this helps!

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Virtual Banker

15 years ago

I have a little experience in this field.
Let me put it this way
eBay = $130++ EPM for targeted traffic
Amazon = about $8 EPM for targeted traffic
(these numbers from both a price comparison site that only does eBay+amazon and from individual dedicated sites)

The only reason you want amazon is because you can get their product descriptions in a feed which is content or to setup the illusion of price comparison.

What else do you need to know?

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ohgworld

15 years ago

No question, my advice is to do both stores!

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lcombs

15 years ago

Thanks for all the great advice!

It appears that the field is split between "eBay" or "both".
Since "both" includes eBay, I'll go with eBay.

I do like Bannor32's answer. The Wordpress with plugin sounds quick, easy and good.
And, Virtual Banker's numbers are hard to argue with.

(of course, I'll still perform a little test ;-) ).

Thanks all,
LC

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bobsstuff

15 years ago

Personally I would be leary of ebay. The reason is that when they changed from CJ to sponsoring their own affiliate network they dumped hundreds if not thousands of affiliates that they said did not measure up.

The give me the feeling that at any moment months of hard work could be for nothing when they ban you for providing low value leads --- yes, the suspend accounts for that. I think ebay creates a climate of fear for many of its clients.

My account was suspened Feb 8 with a 3 day notice for inactivity. After they switched from CJ, I just could not get exicited about promoting them. I have no hard feeling about being dumped as I had already dumped myself.

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candoit2

15 years ago

I did a very small test on this last night via PPC and sent approx 150 visitors each to my ebay and amazon links. Not a single sale for amazon, but already I have 11 for eBay and I have up to another 6 days for auctions to end and more sales to trickle in. I am going to try 500 each and see if the trend changes, but so far it is not even close.

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Virtual Banker

15 years ago

Originally Posted by AaronJones

I did a very small test on this last night via PPC and sent approx 150 visitors each to my ebay and amazon links. Not a single sale for amazon, but already I have 11 for eBay and I have up to another 6 days for auctions to end and more sales to trickle in. I am going to try 500 each and see if the trend changes, but so far it is not even close.

yeah and your Amazon cookies are already expired and your eBay will keep on producing for 6 days.

and once you learn a few key tricks for promoting EPN, you wont have to bother with PPC anymore as well

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candoit2

15 years ago

Originally Posted by AaronJones

I did a very small test on this last night via PPC and sent approx 150 visitors each to my ebay and amazon links. Not a single sale for amazon, but already I have 11 for eBay and I have up to another 6 days for auctions to end and more sales to trickle in. I am going to try 500 each and see if the trend changes, but so far it is not even close.

I sent another 2500 visitors to my offers yesterday.

My thoughts so far are that eBay does better for more generic traffic. For Amazon you'll need to be almost exactly targeted.

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lcombs

15 years ago

Well, Thanks again for all the great input.

Here's another wrinkle.

Bear with me...

Last year I threw a couple of eBay pages on a couple of sites.
Just as an afterthought. Thought I might pick up a few extra bucks from "browsers". I'd pretty much forgot about them until now.

I stumbled onto my stats from those sites while working on the current sites.

On 11/19/08 I made sales of $782.43 from one visitor.
My commission...
$7.82! A WHOPPING 1%

So, what gives?

LC

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dmderoeck 15 years ago

eBay beats Amazon hands down, IMO.

eBay has a tiered structure where you get a percentage of winning bid revenue based on your $ volume (starting at 50%).

If you've optimized your site well enough (in their eyes), you earn an additional ACRU which can be as high as $50 per sign up. It's a very good program.

I've tried many affiliate (auction) programs and think eBay is far and away the best.

-Dan
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lcombs

15 years ago

This is turning out to be a quite a good debate.

I'll put Amazon on one site and eBay on one and both on another and throw up a some PPC ads and see how it pans out.

I already know what I think about this but...

Just to add a new wrinkle...

Where does CJ fit into all this?

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Virtual Banker 15 years ago

Originally Posted by lcombs

Where does CJ fit into all this?

CJ, LS, SAS with their hundreds of merchants make up various niches. you will need to be able to parse their datafeeds into site listings. I think there are a few plugins that can help/

RE: commission on ebay - you get %50+ of eBay final value/listing fees + $1-$50 per new user. the 7 day cookie and the wide varierty of items means that someone can click though on a barbie and end up buying a ferrrai on your cookie.

Amazon has better rates %7 of the price of the item (I think this may be capped too per item) - however the 1 day cookie is just not that fun
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Marhelper

15 years ago

I would say to go with both but if you had to choose one, Ebay will tend to pay out and convert better IMO.

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dmderoeck 15 years ago

Good point. And I do put both eBay and Amazon on my sites but eBay is the far better converter... not even close for me actually. But it depends on the product(s) you are promoting.

Originally Posted by Marhelper

I would say to go with both but if you had to choose one, Ebay will tend to pay out and convert better IMO.
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- bwj292 15 years ago
  
  I have several affiliate sites which most center around eBay and Overstock.com and they do a lot better than any of my sites which just center around Amazon. I like amazon and I like their products and their API feed but their cookie time is terrible, with eBay I do find that a lot of my customers are returning ones buying several items. Because the cookie time is 7 days I get paid for those 7 days and if you get a shopaholic your well in
  
  I also use the Wordpress eBay plugin (phpBay) but there are many free alternatives and it does very well.
  
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morwanneg

15 years ago

Setting up both eBay and Amazon will do you wonders! It is important that you take advantage of both.

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danjoe

15 years ago

For a starter, ebay is the best to go.

-dan

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crazylf2

15 years ago

Similar store , Pick one if you like

I personal like ebay

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mick535 15 years ago

I am a big fan of Ebay since the economy has turned sour, my EPN commissions have gone up. If you are hawking products which a buyer would normally look for second hand, Ebay is your first choice.

I like Amazon, but I have seen a dropoff in my Amazon commissions. I think people have already looked at Amazon already and are looking for a better deal elsewhere. The market is fairly saturated with Amazon affiliate sites.

Combining the two works, but it must blend right or you will not get a sale from either one.
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- Megas 15 years ago
  
  I agree that both equals more money so yes, Ebay and Amazon.
  
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mydavis3

15 years ago

Ebay All the way.

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creat3cp

15 years ago

hmmm, if you're doing physical products, it would make sense for you to sell to as many places as possible?

of cos, start with ebay.com then move on. to be careful of the high ebay fees.
Listing fees, Final Value Fee & the paypal fees. can easily 10+% of your selling price...

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eBay Or Amazon?

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