Multichannel ecommerce: Connecting eBay and Amazon

Two of the most popular ecommerce platforms are eBay and Amazon, and despite the fact that they are both marketplaces they each have different requirements, fees and audiences. So for many online sellers using both eBay and Amazon maximises the reach of their business. We take a look at how you can manage to sell across eBay and Amazon, how to connect your orders and make the most of multichannel ecommerce.

Selling on multiple ecommerce channels

There are a number of benefits to selling on more than one ecommerce platform, including the ability to reach a wider customer base, not being completely dependent on one sales channel, and the opportunity to grow your business. However, selling on eBay and Amazon also involves a lot of challenges. You need to understand the difference between the two platforms, their fee structures, the standards and targets that they expect you to meet as a seller, and their different policies and processes.

Order management for multichannel ecommerce

Keeping orders organised and dispatching them quickly becomes increasingly complicated as your business grows and you expand to sell on more than one ecommerce platform. Logging in separately to eBay and Amazon to check your orders, update their status and fulfil them is time consuming and prone to mistakes.

To stay on top of your orders, you’ll need to find a reliable way of connecting eBay and Amazon orders. Shipping software with order management tools will enable you to view all orders from eBay and Amazon in one place, where you can add notes to them, assign them to different team members, and add flags to orders making them easier to sort. You’ll also be able to search through your orders quickly, which can be useful when dealing with customer enquiries.

Find out more about ecommerce order management tools here.  

Dispatching eBay and Amazon orders

Both eBay and Amazon have specific requirements for how quickly you can fulfil and dispatch your orders, especially if you are looking to become an eBay Top Rated Seller or win the Buy Box on Amazon. Selling on multiple channels will require you to be very organised with your picking, packing and dispatching processes - making sure the right products are sent out to the right customer in good time. Find out more about speeding up your packing here. 

You can make your dispatch process more efficient by using multichannel shipping software that imports all your orders from eBay and Amazon into one place. Then you will be able to add your couriers and create and print shipping labels in bulk, and your orders will automatically be updated as dispatched with tracking details in eBay and Amazon.

Managing stock across different ecommerce platforms

Once you’ve started selling on both eBay and Amazon you’ll need to ensure that you don’t oversell your stock so that you can’t fulfill your orders. Both marketplaces will penalise your seller account for any delay in dispatching an order or cancelling orders because you don’t have the stock.

You will either need to use an inventory management system that can adjust stock levels as soon as you sell a product on one channel, or have separate stock for eBay and Amazon. Your inventory management needs to be reliable and accurate so that you aren’t at risk of having your seller account suspended.

Once you’re up and running with eBay and Amazon, make sure to get started with Zenstores so you have the platform to build a successful multichannel ecommerce business.