Well, that was fast. Yesterday mid-day, I got an email that my Roomba 620 just sold on the Amazon Marketplace. This was surprisingly fast since I had only sold 2 in the past month on ebay. Not only that, the buyer actually paid $10.50 MORE than what I was charging on ebay since I couldn’t figure out how to make it ‘free shipping.’ If anyone knows, please let me know. Anyway, here’s how the 2 compared. Since I am not shipping to the same location, I can’t get an exact apples to apples comparison, but for the most part, both items were shipped from Washington to the East coast.
Ebay
| Item | Sold | Ebay Fee | Shipping Fee | Paypal Fee | Net |
| Roomba 620 | 289.95 | $24.30 | $21.15 | $8.71 | $235.79 |
Amazon
| Item | Sold | Buyer Shipping Fee | Total Sold | Amazon Fee | Shipping Fee | Net |
| Roomba 620 | $288.95 | $10.49 | $299.44 | $45.91 | 21.75 | $231.78 |
Conclusion
As you can see, the numbers are very similar, but the key difference is that the buyer had to pay ~$10 more on Amazon and there was no shipping discount for me. Although Amazon marketplace was ~$4 more expensive, me not paying a dime to ebay was PRICELESS!
Hi Vinh,
Glad you discovered Amazon. I haven’t sold squat on ebay in months. The next step is using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), e.g., ship it to them and have them send it to customer. No reason for you to pay $21.75 to ship it. And you get a higher sales price. Looks like the current price for prime shipping is $317.57, that would net you over $259 after Amazon fees using FBA, less your cost to ship to Amazon (say $6-$8 on a 20 lb item).
Thanks for the comment BH. I shipped a food processor to FBA and also listed it on marketplace. I’ll have to play around with the pros and cons of each.
Buy anything today with the Staples grand MOAC?
Yes, but coupon timing sucked. We were entertaining today so I couldn’t get to STPLS before 8:40. Bought $1k worth of routers and one laminator. Really wish it lasted more than a day.
That’s a good point, but it doesn’t stop idiots on ebay for claiming an item was defective or not as described, which I just had happen yesterday. I get a sense Amazon returns are higher, but only time will tell.
The person can return the item whereas on eBay they cannot. So take 10% out for someone returning something 1 in every 10 sales. A more advanced seller can give you a return rate. Maybe it’s less than 10%. It’s still significant.