Buy on Amazon, Sell on eBay





Have you ever bought an item on eBay then received a package from Amazon, with a gift receipt inside?

I came across a clever scheme that some eBay sellers use to make money selling a wide range of products while carrying no inventory and doing no shipping.

I have been tricked by this myself several times and it is actually rather creative. There are eBay sellers that list hundreds of Amazon products on eBay. However they charge a few dollars more than Amazon for each item and charge shipping.

Or if you’ve dug deeper you may have found tools for repricing eBay listings when prices change on Amazon, or even for automatically purchasing items from Amazon.

If you’ve encountered any of those, you’ve dipped a toe in the frankly murky world of “Amazon to eBay arbitrage”. In this post I’m going to explore it in depth. Yes, it’s dominated by get-rich-quick schemes, but that’s only part of the story. Beneath all that, there’s an interesting phenomenon going on, with innovative technology available and genuine businesses in operation.

Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset to profit from a difference in the price. It is a trade that profits by exploiting the price differences of identical or similar financial instruments on different markets or in different forms. Arbitrage exists as a result of market inefficiencies.

From Pocket Money to Spending Millions on Amazon

1.       Purchase the item on eBay
2.       The eBay seller purchases the item from Amazon,
3.       Amazon shipped the item
4.       The eBay seller kept the difference

eBay lets you list thousands of items for free depending on the time of year. So when the customer buys from the eBay seller they take the money and purchase the item from Amazon and have it shipped directly to the customers address. When I caught on to this I felt cheated / duped. But I guess there is nothing wrong with it.

The seller is listing items that they do not have, but amazon does. They are taking the price and shipping total from amazon and selling items on ebay at that price. They are then placing big enough orders through amazon to be eligible for the free super saving shipping. Each item then gets sent as a gift to whoever bought it off ebay. The seller is not having to pay shipping for any item because amazon ships it for free. They are making profit off what they should be paying in shipping costs.

It’s important to understand that this isn’t Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and the seller does not purchase the item in advance. The key is that the item is only bought from Amazon once a sale has been made on eBay. Amazon is effectively being used as a drop-shipper.
Amazon actually makes millions of price changes every day, which creates a major challenge for arbitrage sellers.

There was no other market research – listing was so cheap it just wasn’t worth refining it further. He’d list everything on eBay for the Amazon price plus a percentage and a fixed “fee”, a kind of commission for handling the transaction.

It’s a zero-sum game with a race to the bottom. Not everyone can make money doing the same thing. But arbitrage selling will continue to exist as a niche, run by people with the willpower and programming knowledge to do it. It’s like trading on the stock exchange, which still has arbitrage with fast frequency transactions, and we still have arbitrage in the betting markets. It’s exactly the same game and will always be there. It just happens to be doing it with consumer goods.

Margins can be as high as 20% above the Amazon price, although around 8% is more typical.

Margins of 8% when, selling on ebay equals a loss, when you remember that eBay & PayPal are going to take a bit or a bite.

Also remember that breaking even means you are working for free.

Another strategy is to list as much as possible. eBay’s selling limits can be a real barrier here, as they restrict the number of active items for sale, and can only be increased once a month. Sellers following this strategy will compile a list of popular products, and create eBay listings in bulk using an automation tool. A lot of sales can result, but margins are smaller and there can be a high demand for customer support. Some high volume sellers only break even, and make a small profit from credit card rewards.

Amazon to eBay Arbitrage Selling FAQs

Isn’t it unethical?

Opinions differ. This form of arbitrage is similar to drop shipping – ordering direct from a wholesaler, but only when a sale is made. Like drop shipping, no stock is held by the seller. Drop shipping is well-established, widespread, and used by many well-known retailers, particularly for bulky and expensive items. Nobody thinks drop shipping is unethical.

But the key differences are that Amazon is a retailer anyone can buy from, and the arbitrage seller does not tell the buyer they will simply purchase the item from Amazon on their behalf. That’s what puts this type of selling in an ethical grey area.

Of course, you can argue that there’s nothing stopping the buyer from checking the price on Amazon themselves, and that’s true. And there’s no obligation on sellers to say if a better price is available elsewhere – it would be absurd to expect that.

Still, even with all the rational arguments going in its favour, Amazon to eBay arbitrage has an air of injustice about it. It’s so far removed from the way people expect a retailer to operate, that I doubt it will ever be seen by everyone as an honourable way to do business.
Don’t eBay buyers get upset when they receive their order from Amazon?
Yes, sometimes, but it doesn’t happen very often. In fact it’s surprisingly rare. Some arbitrage sellers refund the difference if a buyer complains, which normally prevents negative feedback and can be built into the cost of doing business.

Why don’t people buy from Amazon if it’s cheaper?

Most of the time, they just don’t look. There are many different buying habits, and checking prices on both eBay and Amazon isn’t all that common. Some will go direct to eBay, believing it will always have the best price. Others might compare prices, but a comparison between a high street store and eBay, for example, may favour eBay even if the product is actually sourced from Amazon and marked up.

Won’t sellers get banned if they cancel orders?

Yes, if sellers cancel too many orders then eBay will limit their sales or even ban them completely. Using a repricer specifically designed for Amazon to eBay arbitrage addresses the risk of price changes happening before the sale is made. Once an item has sold the price is fixed, but there remains the risk of price changes on Amazon until the order is placed there.

Arbitrage sellers need to avoid order defects like any other eBay seller, so some will take a loss if Amazon prices go up before they place their order. Others will cancel the sale, and risk being penalized. Flawless automation of changes to price and availability, and automatic ordering, are the only way to mitigate the risk completely.

The Future of Arbitrage Selling?

Amazon to eBay arbitrage is much more common than most people think. Sellers who do it don’t advertise the fact, so they are difficult to identify. Perhaps they have feedback that mentions receiving a package from Amazon, or use Amazon images directly in their eBay description, but very few buyers would notice either.


But there is a bigger concept to arbitrage selling than just buying from Amazon and selling on eBay. Whenever there is a sufficient gap between the price that buyers will pay, and the price that a retailer will sell at, arbitrage becomes possible. Sometimes this will be in cross-border selling, with products that are expensive or unavailable in the buyer’s country. A listing on their local eBay site, in their own language, will make the product seem much more accessible.

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