Why Sell on eBay

Why sell on eBay?

Canadians sell over one million items on eBay every month. By selling on eBay, you're connecting your business to more than 160 million global buyers, and over one billion dollars spent by Canadians on eBay each year. Consider some of the benefits of listing on one of the world's leading ecommerce platforms:

• Scalability

  Every day, eBay invests in acquiring new traffic and technology so you don't have to. A marketplace like eBay provides access to the scalability and technology that can complement your existing online and brick-and-mortar channels.

• Online outlets

  Sell on eBay under your own brand or a white label. The eBay marketplace allows retailers to create separate channels for inventory while ensuring you receive the buyer traffic necessary to support strong price realization and sales.

• Product launching and testing

  eBay allows you to test market new products and pricing without investing resources into driving traffic or managing the technical aspects of a website. Low costs and minimal risk allow you to concentrate on your product.

• Global expansion

  Selling on eBay changes the rules of the export game. By providing seamless access to international customers, you can expand your sales beyond local and national markets with just a few clicks.

How we compare to the competition

eBay isn't the only marketplace for sellers to choose from. In fact, many of our sellers are multi- or omni-channel sellers with inventory on a variety of platforms, both online and offline.

Whether you're starting off with a brick-and-mortar store, an online store on a different platform, or with nothing at all, here are a few ways that selling on eBay gives you an edge over the competition:

• Lower fees.

  Selling fees in other marketplaces can be as high as 15% or more. eBay selling fees are 4-9.15% of your item’s final sale price, depending on the category you sell in—and if you’re an eBay Store subscriber, or use one of our frequent seller promotions, they’re even lower.

• Complete control over your pricing.

  Some marketplaces may demand that you price your items so low that it dissolves your margins—or worse, they simply change your pricing as they see fit. On eBay, you are in complete control of how you price your items. While we encourage all sellers to sell competitively, we never change seller pricing or enforce pricing recommendations.

• Greater spectrum of value.

  Since eBay sellers offer new, used, and refurbished items, it’s a great fit for whatever you’re selling, whatever the condition. Whether you need to sell one or one thousand, you can sell it all in the same place.

• Auction-style and fixed price options.

  Fixed pricing is a standard offering across most marketplaces, but auction-style listings are part of what makes eBay unique. If you’re unsure of the demand for your item, or if it’s rare and unique, you can maximize your potential profits with our flexible listing format options.

• Control over your business practices.

  While eBay does have policies in place to keep it a safe place to trade, business decisions about what to sell, when to sell it, and how much to sell it for are yours to make, according to the needs of your business.

• We never compete against our sellers.

  Some marketplaces offer products for sale under their own brand or banner, undercutting other sellers on price, and making order fulfillment prohibitively competitive against professionally-run national warehousing systems. On eBay, we don’t complete against our own sellers.

Choosing a listing site

For most Canadian sellers, eBay.ca is the best choice for listing. You'll get the same exposure in search results as you would for listing on eBay.com, but with the added benefits of listing in Canadian currency and adding Canadian-branded shipping services, making your item more appealing to both Canadian and U.S. buyers.

Below is a list of features that sellers and buyers find important, and which sites you'll find them on.

Depending on your business, it can be cheaper for Canadian sellers to list on eBay.ca, and can even offer a distinct advantage. You can learn more in our frequently asked questions for listing sites.