Shopify vs eBay are both brilliant platforms to launch your e-store and start selling products online. However, each platform has its unique features, pricing, pros and cons. Starting a store on eBay is like getting a stall in a crowded mall. Meanwhile, launching a Shopify website is like building a store on your own land.
If you don’t know which platform fits you the most, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will compare Shopify vs eBay in under 9 critical factors:
#5. Scalability and growth potential
#7. Marketing and SEO features
Let’s dive right in!
Shopify vs eBay: Which One Is Better?
Long story short about the Shopify vs eBay battle:
Shopify is ideal for businesses looking to build a strong brand presence and have full control over their online store. It's best suited for companies wanting long-term growth, extensive customization options, and powerful marketing tools.
eBay, on the other hand, is more suitable for sellers who want to leverage its unique auction-style format, which can be particularly effective for selling collectibles, rare items, or products with uncertain market values. It's also great for casual sellers, those with second-hand items, or businesses seeking immediate exposure to a vast customer base.
Shopify vs eBay Comparison: A Quick Glance
Shopify | eBay | |
Pricing and selling fees | $39 - $399/month with unlimited listings | $7.95 - $349.95/month with limited listings depending on each plan |
Ease of use | Shopify is intuitive, but building a whole eCommerce website still takes some time. | eBay’s generally easier and faster to list your products, set up your store and get started. |
Design and customization | Shopify allows you to fully customize your store. | With eBay, you have to use the same template with many other stores on the marketplace. |
eCommerce features | You have a strong suite of eCommerce functionalities with Shopify like inventory management, shipping and tax calculators, etc. | eBay focuses more on helping sellers connect with buyers. The marketplace is also famous for its auction-style selling support. |
Scalability and growth potential | Shopify has fantastic scalability and growth potential with its App Store, Shopify POS integration, and omnichannel capabilities. | eBay is great with its existing global audience |
Payment options | Shopify supports over 100 third-party payment gateways. | eBay’s payment options can be restricted. |
Marketing and SEO features | The platform gives you various SEO and marketing features. | The marketplace focuses more on SEO features to get your products seen. |
Security | Shopify is highly secure | eBay is also very secure. but it doesn't give sellers as many methods to secure their shops. |
Customer support system | Shopify offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. | eBay offers customer support through a ticketing system and a community forum |
#1. Pricing and Selling Fees
| 💡Shopify is more affordable than eBay.
Both Shopify vs eBay charge you a monthly subscription fee to sell your products. However, besides the subscription fees, eBay also charges other fees like exceeding listing, final values, etc. |
Shopify pricing
Shopify is subscription-based, which means the platform charges merchants a monthly fee to use. With pricing ranging from $39 to $399 per month depending on the level of features and support needed, Shopify provides businesses of all sizes with a suitable plan.
Here are the most common pricing plans for Shopify:
- Basic Shopify: $39 per month, offers you a standalone website with an eCommerce store and a blog.
- Shopify: $105 per month, allows you to create a more powerful store with robust selling functions.
- Advanced Shopify: $399 per month, suitable for midsize to large businesses.
It’s also noteworthy that all Shopify plans let you add unlimited products to your store without any cap.
Shopify now offers a 3-day free trial and then you get to use any plan we mentioned at $1 for the first 30 days. This is a great advantage new sellers can take to figure out if this platform is suitable or not.
In addition to the subscription fee, businesses using Shopify will also need to pay payment processing fees, as well as the extra cost for any paid themes or third-party apps that they use on their store.
eBay selling fee
Similar to Shopify, to open an eBay store, you’ll also have to pay the platform a monthly subscription fee and other fees required by the platform as follow:
Starter Store | Basic Store | Premium Store | Anchor Store | |
Monthly price | $7.95/month; $4.95/month if billed annually | $27.95/month; $21.95/month if billed annually | $74.95/month; $59.95/month if billed annually | $349.95/month; $299.95/month if billed annually |
Number of free listings per month | 250 | 250 auction style 1,000 fixed price | 500 auction style 10,000 fixed price | 1,000 auction style 25,000 fixed price |
Exceeding listing fees (per listing) | 30¢ | 25¢ | 15¢ auction style 10 ¢ fixed price | 10¢ auction style 5¢ fixed price |
Final value fees* | 0.5% to 15% of total amount, plus 30¢ | 0.5% - 14.95% of total amount plus 30¢ | 0.5% to 14.95% of total amount plus 30¢ | 0.5% to 14.95% of total amount plus 30¢ |
*This fee depends on the category of your products and sale prices on eBay. Normally, it would be in the range of 2.35% to 12.35%.
Additionally, eBay offers a range of paid features and services – such as promoted listings and advanced listing upgrades – that can add additional fees to the selling process.
With all the fees combined, if you have a large product catalog or process high volume sales, eBay is definitely more pricey than Shopify.
#2. Ease of Use
| It’s faster to launch an online store on eBay.
Though Shopify is intuitive and easy to use, the setup process is more quicker and straightforward with eBay. |
Shopify’s ease of use
After you sign up for a Shopify plan, you’ll be given access to an admin dashboard. Herein, you can start customizing and setting up your online store from scratch.
Luckily, the intuitive Shopify’s user interface enables you to do anything with ease. You can quickly add products, customize your website’s appearance, configure payments, and connect your domain name.
eBay’s ease of use
Putting Shopify vs eBay in comparison, eBay allows you to set up a store and get started selling more quickly than Shopify. All you have to do is picking a subscription plan, provide your store’s basic information like name, categories, etc.
And given that you don’t have to spend much time on your store’s appearance customization, eBay’s considered faster for sellers to list their products than Shopify.
See more: Shopify vs WordPress: Key Differences and Benefits
#3. Design and Customization
| 💡Between Shopify vs eBay, Shopify is the clear winner in this arena.
With its customizable themes, intuitive design tools, and extensive app and integration ecosystem, Shopify makes it easy for businesses to craft a unique and visually appealing online store. |
Shopify’s design and customization
Shopify is a fully-hosted eCommerce platform that offers a wide range of themes and templates. This lets businesses create a unique and professional online storefront without extensive coding knowledge.
You can also customize them easily using straightforward drag-and-drop tools, ensuring strong branding and unique customer experience. Pick out the best Shopify themes to impress your customers now.
In addition, the Shopify app store gives users a diverse choice of apps and integrations that can add multiple additional functionalities to the storefront. This means you can expand the capability of your eCommerce store as you scale up your online business. From our experience, installing the best Shopify apps will help you to generate sales with ease!
eBay’s design and customization
In contrast, eBay provides a more limited number of design options for sellers. While eBay does offer customizable listing templates, businesses are limited in their ability to create a unique and branded storefront.
Simultaneously, eBay also focuses on providing an easy-to-use platform for sellers to list their products and connect with buyers rather than on extensive customization options.
You may also like: Shopify vs Custom-built Website: Which Is Better for Your Business?
#4. eCommerce Features
| 💡 Shopify has more built-in eCommerce features.
If you need to add multiple functions to your online store and weighing Shopify vs eBay, Shopify is surely the way to go. |
Shopify’s eCommerce features
Selling with Shopify means businesses get access to a great array of eCommerce functionalities. These features include inventory management, shipping and tax calculators, and more. To help maximize your business potential, Shopify also comes with powerful marketing tools such as abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, gift card capabilities, and free gift with purchase.
eBay’s eCommerce features
In contrast, eBay is primarily a marketplace platform, meaning it focuses on connecting buyers and sellers rather than providing extensive eCommerce features.
One of eBay's unique selling points is its auction-style selling format, which can be particularly effective for certain types of products. This feature allows sellers to list items at a starting price and let buyers bid against each other, potentially driving up the final sale price.
Nevertheless, while eBay does offer some basic features for sellers, such as the ability to manage listings and track sales, it does not offer the same range of features as Shopify.
Additionally, while the auction format can be advantageous for some sellers, it may not be suitable for all business models, especially those requiring consistent pricing or dealing with high-volume, standardized products
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#5. Scalability and Growth Potential
| 💡Shopify vs eBay: Shopify has better growth potentials.
Shopify has so many to offer in this aspect– its extensive App Store, seamless integration with Shopify POS, and most importantly, its omnichannel capabilities. Meanwhile, though eBay is great with its vast audience, you still need to work hard to get seen. |
Shopify’s scalability and growth potential
Shopify offers exceptional scalability and growth potential for eCommerce businesses. Shopify's robust infrastructure can handle increased traffic and sales without performance issues, ensuring smooth scaling.
Not to mention that the extensive Shopify App Store with over 8,000 apps allows you to easily expand functionality as your store grows.
Also, Shopify integrates seamlessly with its point-of-sale system–Shopify POS, allowing you to manage your omnichannel selling with ease. And if you want, you can use tools like LitCommerce to list your products to other marketplaces, including eBay.
eBay’s scalability and growth potential
If Shopify is famous for its endless customization through an extensive App Store and great omnichannel capabilities, eBay is known for its vast global audience of 135 million active shoppers worldwide.
However, eBay doesn’t give you control over how your website looks and works like Shopify. Not to mention that you still need to invest in SEO, ads, etc. to get your first sales.
See more:
- Shopify vs Amazon: Which Platform Is Best for Your Online Store?
- Shopify vs Etsy: Which Is the Best Platform for Your Online Store?
#6. Payment Options
| 💡Shopify provides sellers with more payment options.
Shopify works well with over 100 payment gateways, allowing you to accept payments in any option you can think of. Meanwhile, comparing Shopify vs eBay, eBay might be a little bit limited in terms of payment options. |
Shopify’s payment options
Shopify has the so-called Shopify Payments, which is Shopify’s payment gateway. If you live in the countries where Shopify Payments is supported, you can enable this gateway and accept major credit cards, accept payments in local currencies, etc.
Besides this powerful in-house payment gateway, Shopify supports seamless integration with 100+ popular payment gateways worldwide. This means your shoppers can check out comfortably in their preferred payment method, including Stripe, PayPal, Square, and even less common methods like cryptocurrencies, Buy now pay later (BNPL), etc.
eBay’s payment options
Comparing Shopify vs eBay in this area, eBay’s payment options can feel restricted as the marketplace only supports payment processing in one of the following methods:
- PayPal
- PayPal Credit
- Credit card or debit card
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Venmo
- Spendable funds
- Payment upon pickup
- Wire transfer facilitated by eBay (select categories only)
- eBay gift card or eBay voucher or eBay Bucks.
See more: Shopify vs Square: Which Ecommerce Platform Wins?
#7. Marketing and SEO Features
| 💡 Shopify has superior marketing and SEO features.
If you want full control over how you market your store and reach customers, Shopify is your best bet between Shopify vs eBay. |
Shopify’s marketing and SEO features
Shopify packs a punch when it comes to marketing and SEO tools that allow you to promote your store effectively and experiment with multiple marketing channels. Here's what you get:
- SEO features: Shopify provides built-in SEO features that make it easy to optimize your store. You can customize meta titles, descriptions, and URLs for all your products and pages. The platform automatically generates canonical tags, robots.txt files, and sitemaps, saving you time and ensuring search engine compliance.
- Content marketing: With Shopify, you can create a blog directly on your store, allowing you to implement content marketing strategies to improve your SEO and engage customers.
- Email marketing: Shopify offers integrated email marketing features with its in-house app– Shopify Email, enabling you to create targeted campaigns and nurture customer relationships directly from your store's backend.
- Discount codes: If you plan to run flash sale campaigns regularly, you’d be delighted to know that Shopify enables you to create discount codes and apply to your selected products with ease.
- Analytics: Shopify's analytics give you detailed data on traffic sources, conversion rates, customer behavior, and more.
eBay’s marketing and SEO features
eBay works differently as it's a big online marketplace rather than a personal store platform. From our experience, eBay's marketing and SEO features are more limited and focused on optimizing within the eBay ecosystem:
- Internal SEO: eBay's SEO is primarily focused on optimizing for their internal search engine, Cassini. You can use relevant keywords in titles and descriptions, but you have less control over crucial SEO elements like URLs or meta descriptions 1.
- Promoted listings: eBay offers a paid promotion feature to boost your listings' visibility within the platform, but this doesn't extend to external search engines.
- Analytics: eBay provides basic analytics on sales performance, listing views, and buyer demographics. However, these insights are less detailed and customizable compared to Shopify's offerings.
#8. Security
| 💡 Shopify slightly wins.
Both Shopify vs eBay care about security, but they do it differently. Shopify seems to offer more protection for individual online stores. eBay's security is good for the entire marketplace, but it doesn't give individual sellers as many options to secure their own shops. |
Shopify’s security
Shopify takes security seriously. They offer many features to keep online stores safe:
- They follow strict payment security rules (PCI DSS Level 1).
- Every store gets a security certificate (SSL) to keep customer data safe.
- Shopify's team is always on the lookout for security risks and updates the system often.
- Store owners can use two-step login (2FA) for extra account protection.
eBay’s security
eBay also works hard to keep its users safe:
- They use strong encryption to protect data.
- eBay follows payment security rules too.
- They watch for strange account activity.
- Users can set up two-step login for better account safety.
Clearly, eBay's security is more about protecting the whole marketplace, not just individual stores. They don't offer as many custom security options as Shopify does for each seller.
#9. Customer Support System
| 💡 Shopify’s support system slightly edges over eBay’s.
Both Shopify vs eBay offer good customer service. However, Shopify's round-the-clock availability and responsive support team make it a more appealing option. While eBay's ticket system and community forum can be helpful, the marketplace still comes after its competitor. |
Shopify’s customer support system
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support through various channels, including phone, email, and live chat. They also have an extensive help center with articles and tutorials that can help users troubleshoot issues on their own.
Shopify's customer support team is known for being responsive and knowledgeable, which is essential when running an online store. Users can also get practical advice from the active Shopify community.
eBay’s customer support system
On the other hand, eBay offers customer support through a ticketing system and a community forum where you can ask questions and get answers from other eBay users. While eBay does have a knowledge base with articles and tutorials, it may not be as comprehensive as Shopify's. Its customer support response time may also vary depending on the issue and the volume of support requests.
eBay vs Shopify: Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shopify as good as eBay?
It depends on your business’ needs and goals. Shopify and eBay serve different purposes. Shopify offers more flexibility, customization options, and integrations, while eBay has a simpler setup and provides instant access to a large customer base.
Can I use Shopify to sell on eBay?
Yes, you can use LitCommerce app to sync your Shopify products to eBay with real-time product information update across both channels.
Is it worth it to sell in Shopify?
Yes, selling on Shopify can be worth it, especially for businesses looking to build a strong brand presence and have full control over their online store.
Does Shopify charge for eBay?
No, Shopify does not charge you any additional fees for selling on eBay when you integrate your Shopify store with eBay. However, you still pay Shopify's standard transaction fees, and you're responsible for eBay's listing fees.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, both Shopify vs eBay have their own unique features and advantages for businesses. Shopify is a great option for those looking for advanced customization options, robust eCommerce features, and a focus on building a brand. On the other hand, eBay can help you leverage its existing marketplace and take advantage of a large customer base.
Regardless of which platform you choose, it's important to remember that success in eCommerce ultimately comes down to the quality of the products, the marketing efforts, and the customer experience. By focusing on these areas, businesses can succeed whether they decide on Shopify or eBay, and ultimately achieve their eCommerce goals.
If you’re interested in articles like this one, we bet you’ll find many other interesting readings at LitExtension’s eCommerce platform blogs.Don’t forget to join our active Facebook community group to expand your network and learn from 18,000+ global entrepreneurs.
See more: Shopify Competitors: Comparing Top Alternatives for Ecommerce
