If you are adding a marketplace to your business, Amazon and eBay are usually the first two names on the list. Both are household names, both are trusted by UK shoppers, and both will happily list your stock. The trouble is that they reward very different things. Pick the one that doesn't suit your products and you can spend months adjusting listings that were never going to win.
This guide compares the two on the things that actually decide results: how the fees work, how buyers behave, how listings are built, who handles delivery and how much control you keep. Fees and rules change, so every figure here is correct at the time of writing (October 2026) and linked to its source.
eBay and Amazon at a glance
| Amazon | eBay | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £25 (excluding VAT) on the Professional plan, or 75p per item sold on the Individual plan | No subscription needed. Optional shops from £27 a month (Basic) to £437 a month (Anchor), excluding VAT |
| Selling fee | A referral fee that varies by category, mostly 8% to 15% of the total price | A final value fee that varies by category, plus a per-order fee of 30p or 40p |
| Listing model | One shared product page per product, with sellers competing for the featured offer | Each seller builds its own listing, helped by product identifiers and eBay's catalogue |
| Formats | Fixed price | Fixed price and auction-style |
| Fulfilment service | Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), with Prime eligibility | eBay fulfilment by Orange Connex for UK business sellers |
| Branding | A+ content and a Brand Store through Brand Registry, which needs a trademark | A branded shopfront with any shop subscription |
How the fees work
Amazon
Amazon charges in layers. First comes the selling plan. The Individual plan costs 75p per item sold, while the Professional plan costs £25 (excluding VAT) a month however much you sell. Simple maths says Professional is cheaper once you sell more than about 33 items a month (£25 divided by 75p), and it is also the plan you need to run Sponsored Products ads.
Second, there is a referral fee on every sale. It is a percentage of the total price the buyer pays, including delivery, and it depends on the product category. Amazon says most referral fees fall between 8% and 15%, with a minimum of 25p per item in most categories. For example, Tools and Home Improvement is 13%, while Pet Supplies and Lawn and Garden are 15%.
Third, if you use Fulfilment by Amazon, you pay a per-unit fulfilment fee based on size and weight, plus monthly storage fees that rise between October and December.
eBay
eBay's business seller fees have more moving parts but no compulsory subscription. You pay an insertion fee per listing once you have used your free allowance (30p per extra listing if you don't have a shop), then a final value fee when the item sells. The final value fee is a percentage of the total amount of the sale, including postage and any taxes, plus a per-order fee of 30p on orders of £10 or less and 40p on orders over £10. A regulatory operating fee of 0.35% of the sale is added on top.
Rates vary by category. At the time of writing, most of Home, Furniture & DIY is 11.9% on the first £500 of each item, Garden & Patio is 10.9%, and DIY Tools & Workshop Equipment is 6.9% on the first £400. eBay shows its business fees excluding VAT.
A shop subscription (Basic £27, Featured £77 or Anchor £437 a month) gives you more free listings, cheaper extra listings and a branded shopfront. One rule catches people out: if your seller performance is Below Standard on the 20th of a month, eBay adds 6 percentage points to your final value fees for the following month.
A quick worked example. Take a £40 garden item sold with free delivery. On Amazon (Lawn and Garden, 15%) the referral fee is £6.00, plus your share of the £25 monthly plan. On eBay (Garden & Patio, 10.9%) the final value fee is £4.36, plus the 40p per-order fee and a 14p regulatory operating fee, so £4.90 in total. Both figures are before VAT on fees, advertising and delivery costs, and your category may be priced differently, so always run your own numbers.
The headline fee is rarely the whole story. On Amazon, FBA and advertising can cost more than the referral fee. On eBay, postage, promoted listings and returns add up quickly. Compare your full cost per order, not just the percentage on the fee page. Our guide to Amazon UK seller fees goes deeper on the Amazon side.
Audience and buyer behaviour
Amazon works like a product search engine. Shoppers usually arrive knowing roughly what they want, type it in and buy from the offer shown on the product page. Delivery speed matters a great deal: Amazon itself says customers often shop for products with the Prime badge, which you can get by using FBA. That rewards businesses with competitive prices, reliable stock and fast delivery.
eBay attracts a broader mix of buyers: bargain hunters, collectors, and people looking for a specific part, a used item or something no longer in the shops. eBay supports both fixed price and auction-style listings, and buyers can search directly by EAN, ISBN or MPN, which makes it strong for spares, replacement parts and exact model numbers.
In practice, Amazon suits products people search for by name or type, where the winner is simply the best offer. eBay suits stock with more variation, such as refurbished goods, end-of-line lines, bundles, parts and anything where condition or detail matters.
Listing model: shared catalogue vs your own listings
This is the biggest practical difference between the two, and it shapes almost everything else.
Amazon uses a shared catalogue. When several sellers offer the same product, Amazon combines their offers into one product detail page. If the product already exists, you match the existing listing. If you are the first to sell it, you create the listing. One seller's offer is shown as the featured offer (often called the Buy Box), which is where most sales happen. You compete on price, delivery and performance rather than on who wrote the best description. Our guide to winning the Buy Box explains how it is decided.
The upside is speed: you can start selling an established product in minutes. The downside is control. If you sell your own branded products, other sellers with genuine stock can offer them on the same page, and without Brand Registry you have limited say over what that page shows.
eBay lets every seller build their own listing. You write the title (eBay recommends using all 80 characters), choose the photos, fill in the item specifics and write the description. Adding product identifiers such as EANs helps your listing appear in more relevant searches, and eBay can auto-fill details from its catalogue when there is a match. Two sellers with the same product appear as two separate listings, so the quality of your listing, your price and your feedback all affect who gets the sale.
If you need barcodes for either marketplace, our guide to GTINs and barcodes in the UK explains the options.
Fulfilment and delivery
With Fulfilment by Amazon, you send stock to Amazon's fulfilment centres and Amazon picks, packs and ships your orders, and handles customer service and returns. Your products become eligible for Prime, which helps both conversion and your chances of winning the featured offer. You can also fulfil orders yourself, from your own premises or through a third-party logistics provider.
On eBay, most businesses dispatch their own orders. For UK business sellers, eBay also offers eBay fulfilment by Orange Connex, an end-to-end service with same-day handling and late cut-off times for next day or standard delivery.
If you sell on both, Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfilment can ship orders from other sales channels, including eBay, using your FBA stock, in unbranded packaging. That lets you keep one pool of stock rather than splitting it between warehouses. Check that the delivery times and tracking meet eBay's standards before you rely on it.
Control, branding and advertising
Branding. Any eBay shop subscription includes a shopfront and a link to your shop from your listings, bringing your listings together in one branded place. On Amazon, the brand tools sit behind Brand Registry. To join, you need an active registered trademark or a pending trademark application, and your brand name must be permanently on your products or packaging. In return you get A+ content (richer images, video and comparison charts), a free Brand Store and Sponsored Brands ads.
Advertising. Amazon's Sponsored Products ads work on cost per click: you bid the most you will pay when a shopper clicks, and your product must be eligible for the featured offer to advertise. eBay's Promoted Listings general strategy works differently. You set an ad rate between 2% and 100% of the sale, and you are only charged when the promoted item sells within 30 days of a click on your ad. eBay's priority strategy charges per click instead.
Performance rules. Both marketplaces measure dispatch times, cancellations, tracking and customer complaints, and both act when you fall short. On eBay the cost is direct, because Below Standard sellers pay higher final value fees. On Amazon, poor metrics can put your account itself at risk. Our guide to marketplace account health covers what to watch on each.
Which one suits your business?
Amazon is likely to be the better first choice if
- your products are new, branded and searched for by name or type
- you can compete on price and offer fast delivery, ideally through FBA
- you own a trademark, or can register one, so you can use Brand Registry
- your margin can carry referral, fulfilment and advertising costs together
eBay is likely to be the better first choice if
- you sell used, refurbished, end-of-line or one-off stock
- your range includes parts, spares or items buyers search for by model number
- you want to control your own listing content and shopfront
- you dispatch from your own premises and would rather avoid warehouse fees
When to sell on both
Plenty of businesses end up on both marketplaces, and for good reason: different buyers, different search results and less reliance on one platform's rules. But doing both badly is worse than doing one well. Before you add the second, check you can tick off each of these:
- Your first marketplace is stable. Listings are complete, performance metrics are healthy and you know your true cost per order.
- Stock is shared automatically. When a unit sells on eBay, it must come off Amazon within minutes. Manual stock updates are a common cause of overselling, and our guide to stopping overselling explains the options.
- Listings are written for each marketplace. An Amazon title and an eBay title do different jobs. Pasting one into the other wastes the space eBay gives you for keywords and item specifics.
- Pricing reflects each fee structure. The same retail price can leave you with a different margin on each marketplace, as the worked example above shows.
- Fulfilment is planned. Decide whether you dispatch everything yourself, use FBA for Amazon and self-dispatch for eBay, or use Multi-Channel Fulfilment for both.
If you already sell on one of them and want a second opinion before expanding, book a free 20-minute demo. We look at the channels you sell on today and show where your products could sell next and what it would cost.
Key takeaways
- Amazon charges a plan fee plus a category referral fee, mostly 8% to 15%. eBay charges a category final value fee plus a per-order fee, with optional shop subscriptions.
- Amazon shares one product page between sellers, so you compete for the featured offer. On eBay, every seller builds their own listing.
- FBA and Prime are major advantages on Amazon. On eBay, most businesses dispatch their own orders, although a fulfilment service is available.
- Brand control on Amazon depends on Brand Registry and a trademark. eBay gives you a shopfront with any shop subscription.
- Sell on both only when stock syncs automatically and you know your margin on each.