In this Shopify comparison, we will show you the main differences between Shopify vs eBay, so you can decide which suits you best.
There is no doubt that eCommerce has been a massively booming industry for decades.
According to research, eCommerce accounted for 13.7% of global retail sales in 2019.
If you are looking to start your online business? You should be.
To build an online store, your first business order is to choose an eCommerce platform.
This will bring you to a big question: “Which eCommerce platform should I use to sell my goods?”
Among a lot of eCommerce platforms out there, Shopify vs eBay are two names that come up regularly.
But which one of them is the right platform for your online store?
About Shopify vs eBay
First thing first, you need to make sure you know some basics about each platform.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a powerful platform with everything you need to create your own branded online store and sell anything.
Currently, it is one of the most popular hosted eCommerce platforms on the market.
With Shopify, you can quickly build and manage a professional online store with your chosen domain URL.
How does Shopify work?
Shopify provides its users the framework and basic platform to allow them to set up an online store.
Shopify is designed to simplify and streamline the process of selling online.
They also have a bunch of other features that give you complete control over your online store.
On top of this, Shopify has a killer app store to help you customize your store in any way you want.
What is eBay?
eBay is a very active online marketplace with a wide range of products from businesses or private sellers.
It is one of the oldest eCommerce selling platforms, only a year later than Amazon.
eBay is known as the leading auction website.
To buy an item on eBay, shoppers can either bid on an auction or choose to straight-up ‘Buy it Now’.
You can set up your own eBay store too, but it will always be within the eBay website, and the branding and customization are significantly more limited than Shopify.
How does eBay work?
Anyone can sell anything on eBay, from new and hot to old and unwanted items. Just list your item with photos, descriptions, prices, and shipping information.
But if you want to show your customers that you are a serious and legitimate business, you should set up a business account and create an official eBay Store.
It will be much more appealing and impressive.
Pros and cons of Shopify vs eBay
I assure you that both platforms are excellent. But each has some advantages and disadvantages as well.
To know exactly which is the right platform for you, you need to know their good and bad.
Compare the pros and cons of Shopify vs eBay in the table below.
| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | – Easy to set up and manage – Easy to customize – Provides beautifully-designed templates – Include extensive features – 24/7 support – Huge range of apps |
– Need to know Liquid template language to make backend changes – Cost extra fees ì you’re using third-party payment gateways (instead of Shopify payments) – The lowest-priced doesn’t show you your store’s reports – Need to drive traffic to your own store |
| eBay | – Get access to its existing marketplace – Sell to a global audience – Easy to get started and manage – Can create a unique shop front to establish your brand – Seller protection measures in place |
– Highly competitive marketplace – Difficult to stand out from other stores and sellers – Limited customization options and business tools compared to Shopify – Difficult to promote your store outside of eBay |
Shopify vs eBay – Comparison
The table below is a summarized version of Shopify vs eBay comparison for you to take a quick look.
| Shopify | eBay | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform type | Webstores | Marketplaces |
| Design | Provides 10 free templates and over 60 premium templates | Basic eBay template only |
| Customer traffic | Have to drive traffic yourself | Have a big customer base |
| Code requirements | No coding knowledge required, but you have to work in Liquid template language to customize | No coding knowledge required at all |
| Manage with app | Yes | Yes |
| Bidding system | No | Yes |
| Customer retention | Customers may come back if they are satisfied | You can’t build a relationship with your customers |
| Feature | Have a lot of commerce tools | Have all the necessary commerce tools |
| App | Shopify App Store | Third-party App Center |
| Domain URL | Let you choose your unique domain | Let you choose your unique username |
| Shipping | Advanced shipping abilities with Shopify Shipping | Advanced shipping abilities with Global Shipping Program |
| Analytic | Provide a powerful analytic tool with detailed statistics | Provide reports tools with some basic information, can also use an app in eBay’s Apps Center to see more detail |
| Free plan | 14-day trial to test with a published store | Don’t charge a monthly service fee for one-off items selling |
| Pricing | Starting at $29 per month | Starting at $5 per month |
| Additional fees | Transaction fees; additional fee for 0.5% – 2% if using third-party payment providers | 10% of the final sale price for regular listings; Extra fees for extra listings |
And below, we will show you the key differences between Shopify vs eBay in detail.
8 key differences between Shopify vs eBay
Easy to use
Easy to use is one of the most important factors to consider when you choose a platform.
Why? Because you wouldn’t want to spend days setting up your store only to realize it is impossible for you to manage, would you?
So how simple is it to run an online store on Shopify vs eBay platform?
To Shopify, ease of use is one area where it shines more than most other platforms.
You don’t need to be a web designer or coder to build your store. All orders can be managed from their automatable fulfillment dashboard.
It will save a lot of time and effort for you.
And whether you use the desktop or mobile devices, responsiveness is both taken care of.
With eBay, you won’t need to prepare any technical knowledge or have any experience.
eBay is the most simple eCommerce platform to use.
They also have some business tools that are intuitive, clear, and packed with massive documentation.
Shopify vs eBay: Easy to use
It is a tie!
Design flexibility
As we all know, first impressions are vital. It is always a challenge for you to impress your customer at their first glance at your store.
No matter which platform you choose, you must know that there are already thousands of stores started before you.
The store design is the key to help your store stand-out compared to others.
So, between Shopify vs eBay, which provides you the better designing tool?
Shopify offers you a lot of well-designed templates.
Currently, it has an impressively wide array of 10 free and over 60 premium templates to choose from.
So there is no doubt that you will be able to make an attractive looking store.
One downside is that their premium templates will cost you $180 each, and the free templates look kind of basic.
The design features in Shopify are suitable for people with no coding background. You can easily make some changes on colors, images, etc.
But if you want to make more backend changes, you will likely need to work with a developer because their templates are written in Liquid templating code, which is quite hard to access if you’re not a programmer.
eBay doesn’t provide you as much design flexibility.
All stores and listings follow a standard eBay template.
Users can make some changes to the logo, banner, descriptions, and photo within the storefront.
With listings, sellers can manage titles as well as various options such as color, size, model, product information, and description.
Shopify vs eBay: Design flexibility
Shopify wins!
Feature and App
Feature and app is something people may not pay enough attention to.
But still, you need to know what you can expect when you choose a platform to work with.
What feature and app do they offer you to help your business?
On Shopify, each plan offers a variety of features.
Don’t worry if you can afford a high plan right away, because they have some basic features on all plans, like unlimited products, gift cards, fraud analysis or discount codes, etc.
The higher plan brings you more amazing features.
For example, the basic Shopify plan offers every tool you need to run your store. But the Shopify plan or higher offers a better insight with built-in professional reports.
To see a full list of features on each plan, please check out the Shopify website.
Currently, Shopify offers a selection of over 3800 apps to boost sales performance on their app store.
There are several apps for literally everything you can think of to help your store. From changing labels to adding photos in the menu, there is at least an app for it on the Shopify app store.
eBay, on the other hand, doesn’t have that much default feature, to begin with.
After all, it is a marketplace platform, so they only focus on some features like product listing, advanced search, or selling summary reports.
To see a full list of features, please check out the eBay website.
eBay used to have their app center, but they closed it at the end of 2018.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t any app for eBay anymore. But it will be harder for you to find some outside help.
To use a third-party app designed for eBay, you will have to find a third-party providers’ website to buy the app.
Shopify vs eBay: Feature and App
Shopify wins!
Analytic
Analytics uses data and math to help answer business questions. It’s the key to improve your business.
Therefore, analytic tools are an essential feature of any eCommerce platform.
Shopify provides you an overview dashboard with business insights through analytics.
In this dashboard, you can view stats like sales, top products, landing pages or referrers, returning customer rate, and more.
More than that, Shopify users can create their own custom reports easily.
Not to mention the Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus plans also offer pre-defined reports.
eBay provides its own sales reports tools that give you the detailed information you need to understand how your business performs and how you can improve your sales.
It allows you to keep track of total sales, successful listings, average sale price, month-to-month sales growth, and fees.
Of course, these are just basic information and not quite helpful as the more insight static Shopify offers.
To see more analytic information, you can use an analytic app on eBay’s app center.
Shopify vs eBay: Analytic
Shopify wins!
Customer retention
As you must have heard a thousand times, it’s always cheaper to make your current customers come back than find new customers.
So what is customer retention?
Customer retention is the collection of activities to increase the number of old customers’ repeat purchases and increase each existing customer’s profitability.
This is an important base to grow your business.
On Shopify, сuѕtоmеrѕ аrе drіvеn bу truѕtіng thе ѕhор or brаnd to buy the рrоduсtѕ.
That means people tend to come back to the store they trust to find the products they need. And maybe they can find something they will like but didn’t even knоw еxіѕtеd.
Thіѕ is bесаuѕе the ѕtоrе and brаnd hаѕ build a rеlаtіоnѕhір with their customer. They undеrѕtаndіng their buyers and look to рrоvіdе thеm wіth thе рrоduсtѕ thеу are lооking fоr.
On еBау, the bіggеѕt drawback іѕ that уоu can nоt buіldіng a rеlаtіоnѕhір bеtwееn уоur store аnd уоur customers.
еBау іѕ a mаrkеt рlасе and customers аrе drіvеn bу fіndіng the product they need with the best price.
They usually don’t care who they buy it from, and next time they will continue to find the product’s name on the search bar instead of looking for it on the store they know.
Shopify vs eBay: Customer retention
Shopify wins!
Explore more about Shopify vs Shopify Plus.
Help and Support
No matter if you are a beginner or an expert in online business, things can always go wrong at some point. And that is when you need someone to be there to help get you back on track.
This is why a great support system is a need.
So let’s take a look at the help and support centers of Shopify vs eBay.
Shopify has 24/7 email, phone, and live chat support on all of their plans.
And their customer service has become more and more professional over the years.
In fact, their customer reviews are full of positive comments about the quality of support.
The supporting email system is also offered in a variety of other languages, not just English.
Other than that, with thousands of online shop owners using the Shopify platform, it has the most active user communities.
You can quickly find a Facebook group or a forum to ask for help with your Shopify store.
Unlike Shopify, eBay’s help and support system range depending on which plan you pay for.
The basic support system is primarily supported via live chat and email.
Higher-lever subscription plans offer eBay Concierge, which allows their users to receive more support options than the basic package.
With the Concierge plan, you can reach out to the support team’s well-trained members, get a large amount of documentation and training, and receive support in lower wait times.
Plus, you can have additional assistance with negative reviews on eBay.
Overall, the quality of eBay’s customer support is quite good.
Shopify vs eBay: Help and Support
Shopify wins!
Shipping
Shipping is an essential process in your online business.
After your customers choose to buy an item, shipping is the last process they need to go through.
And a scary statistic shows that 51% of people said they had abandoned a sale at checkout because of poor delivery options.
Let’s see what shipping option is provided to your customer in Shopify and eBay.
Shopify now provides its own shipping software to support its store owners.
This is called Shopify Shipping, and it is free to use and build in every account.
Shopify Shipping offers you tools to calculate real-time shipping rates, buy and print shipping labels, and monitor shipments.
But keep in mind that it is only eligible for orders delivered from two countries: the United States and Canada.
Its international shipping tools can provide shipment tracking data to your buyers.
This shipping suite brings discounted rates up to 90% on different shipping services, thanks to the partnership with UPS, USPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post.
It also allows you to add real-time shipping calculations to your order processing page and checkout, which helps you to charge exact amounts for shipping, decreasing the risk of underestimating your shipping costs.
eBay gives you one special shipping option: you can ship your products by yourself.
Self-shipping involves more work, but you don’t have to pay additional fees to third party services or drop shipping providers.
Besides, self-shipping can offer more chances for branding with packing slips.
You can print your logo, promotion information or personal messages in these slips.
Other than that, there are still third-party logistics partner options for you.
You will have to pay for them, but they will be responsible for your shipment.
Moreover, eBay provides a Global Shipping Program. This will make your international sales simple and easy.
This program allows you to ship your products to eBay’s international shipping center in Kentucky.
After that, eBay will manage paperwork and deliver it to your customers across the world.
Shopify vs eBay: Shipping
It is a tie!
Pricing and Fees
Everyone knows that you need money to make money.
Obviously, the price is the first thing that comes to your mind when you are doing business.
Pricing is everyone’s favorite topic.
It is even more critical when you’re first starting out.
Because it may take a little while to get your audience and customer base up and running, and you don’t want to be paying a fortune out of pocket for the platform only.
So let’s dive in and find out Shopify vs eBay, which offers better value for money.
Shopify currently offers you four main plans:
- Shopify Lite: $9/month
- Basic Shopify: $29/month
- Shopify: $79/month
- Advanced Shopify: $299/month
For a full list of features per plan, please check out the Shopify website.
There is a 14-day free trial option for you to test it out before upgrading to any plan.
Other than that, they also have Shopify Plus, essentially an upgraded version of Shopify and designed for large enterprise businesses.
Shopify Plus plans start at $2000 per month and are based on your pricing customized plan.
So, based on your Shopify Plus store’s sales volume, here is what you can expect to pay:
- $0 to $800,000 – you will pay $2,000
- $1,000,000 – you will pay $2,500
- $5,000,000 – you will pay $12,500
- $12,000,000 – you will pay $30,000
- $16,000,000 and more – you will pay $40,000
With all of their fantastic features and support, clearly, the price is understandable.
But the downside is that Shopify will charge you an additional fee if you want to use any payment gateway other than Shopify Payments – their own payment solution.
The additional fee costs 0.5% – 2% per payment, depending on your chosen plan.
eBay just takes 10% of the final sale price (includes shipping fees) for regular listings.
But if you want to set up your own store, eBay offers you five different plans:
- Starter: $7.95/month, or $4.95/year
- Basic: $27.95/month, or $21.95/year
- Premium: $74.95/month, or $59.95/year
- Anchor: $349.95/month, or $299.95/year
- Enterprise: $2,999.95/year
eBay gives sellers a number of listings every month within the price packages. And it requires a small fee for each extra listing.
For a full list of features per plan, please check out the eBay website.
Shopify vs eBay: Pricing and Additional fees
eBay wins!
Conclusion
Now that you have all the information you need about Shopify vs eBay, which platform should you use?
To make it easier for you, we will once again point out the most significant difference between Shopify vs eBay sums up:
Shopify makes building your online store quick and simple, while the range of branding options helps you create something unique.
Shopify is really ideal for businesses that care about branding and are looking for continued growth.
Creating a store with Shopify helps you achieve a professional look and great for growing a genuine brand, but you have to drive targeted traffic yourself.
eBay offers a store within an already established marketplace of buyers and can acquire traffic easier.
eBay is a major draw for amateur business owners, hobbyists, or simply people with an excess of stuff to make some extra cash.
It is great for making extra sales, but it isn’t the best place to build a stand out store that can grow into a long term brand.
Our advice is to sell on both Shopify and eBay.
You should start with eBay to test your products, see which products are customer favorites.
Then you use Shopify to build your brand and grow your business.
You can use a multi-platform business management tool (for example, inkFrog or Veeqo) to link your eBay and Shopify store and manage them both.
That way, you can help the best of both worlds.
I hope this article is helpful for you to choose between Shopify vs eBay.
Best luck to you!
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