Building Brand Architecture Report: Amazon vs eBay

Author: Ritvars Mētra, 2020

Introduction
This report has been made to build and examine two brands: eBay and Amazon. These days there are
many ecommerce platforms to sell on from Etsy to Jingdong, but the two powerhouses still remain eBay
and Amazon. Amazon and eBay stormed the web in 1994 and 1995, respectively, and grew quickly in
popularity. Both companies are now international and allow small businesses to sell their products
through their website. Although both companies has several revenue channels, this report is focused on
eCommerce platforms what both companies offer.

Figure 1 - Leading online marketplaces in USA. Source: statista

Brand Architecture for Amazon

The Everything Store

Competence, Reliable, up to date

Less hassle, trustworthy, convenient

High service, wide range, new goods

buy everything at the click of a button, easy shopping

in less time
Brand Architecture for eBay

Online marketplace for everyone

Surprising, quirki

fun from shopping,

cheap price, rare collectables, new and used goods

Online auction site, make selling and buying easier

Brand comparison
Both Amazon and eBay each have a massive reach. However, they’re not equal in all respects.

Amazon is undeniably the ecommerce giant. According to recent industry figures, Amazon is the leading
e-retailer in the United States with close to 280.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 net sales, 74.7 billion U.S.
dollars of which were generated through international revenue channels. North America was the biggest
operations segment, accumulating over 170.77 billion U.S. dollars in net sales during the year. 1 These
sales figures roughly mark a 20 percent year-over-year increase from the first quarter of 2019 (see
Figure 1.).

1
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266289/net-revenue-of-amazon-by-region/
Figure 2 - Annual net revenue of Amazon from 2004 to 2019. Source:statista

Amazon has more than 2.5 million sellers currently actively selling on the marketplace 2. More than 197
million people worldwide visit Amazon.com each month. Amazon is responsible for 5% of all U.S. retail
spend. And while online shoppers will price check various sites before purchasing a product, 44% of
them begin their product searches on Amazon. Amazon’s online sales soared 24% in the first quarter,
the fastest pace in four years. Amazon’s first-party sales - not the total GMV, including the marketplace,
but only sales where Amazon is the retailer - increased at more than twice the rate compared to Q1
20193.

Things looks a bit different for eBay. The company that many, many people used a decade ago has fallen
out of favor a bit in recent years. eBay’s total revenue per year has been essentially flat for nearly five
years while Amazon’s has nearly tripled in this time. However, eBay may not be able to compete with
Amazon’s massive amounts of organic traffic, but it has an active audience all its own. Its 183 million
active buyers and 25 million sellers hail from across the globe, and it has 23 international websites,
reaching consumers from UK to New Zealand. In fact, more than half of eBay’s annual sales revenue
comes from its 60 million buyers outside the United States, setting it apart from Amazon in global
reach4. In 2019 eBay´s net transaction revenues from marketplace alone was $1,829 million USD, and
63% of came from international markets. The latest eBay statistics show that the amount of Gross
Merchandise Volume (GMV) on its marketplace hit $22 billion USD. 5That means that $22 billion worth of
goods were bought and sold on its marketplace platforms during this period.

2
https://www.marketplacepulse.com/amazon/number-of-sellers
3
https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/amazon-sales-up-24-fastest-growth-in-four-years
4
https://ebay.q4cdn.com/610426115/files/doc_financials/financials/2018/annual/2018_eBay_Annual_Report.pdf
5
https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-q3-2019-results/
Although eBay initially rise as online auction site for used goods, nowadays 80 percent of all goods sold
on eBay are new. But in terms of sell-through rate, used items are actually outperforming new items 6.

Brand value
In all available brand rankings eBay is far behind from amazon. Most of the evaluators describes Amazon
as Power brand and eBay as eroding brand.

According to Interbrand Best Global Brands 2019 Rankings, Amazon´s brand is 3rd position and it is
currently worth 125, 263 million USD. eBay, on other hand, occupies 44th position and is 12, 010 million
USD worth7.

Forbes valued the leading brands based on their earnings over the past three years and the relevance of
the brands in their industry. In 2019 ranking, Forbes evaluated Amazon´s brand value was $97 Billion
USD (4th place) but eBay´s - $10.5 Billion (64 th place)8.

According to the latest Brand Finance Global 500 report launched in January 2020, Amazon makes
history as first brand in Brand Finance Global 500 ranking to exceed US$200 billion value mark and
retains title of world’s most valuable brand for third consecutive year. Following 18% growth from
US$187.9 billion last year, Amazon’s brand value has now reached US$220.8 billion, over US$60 billion
more than Google’s and US$80 billion more than Apple’s 9.

In stark contrast to Amazon’s success, eBay’s brand value has continued to erode, falling 9% to US$8.2
billion (drop from 206 in 2019 to 234 in 2020) 10. Despite the number of active buyers steadily increasing
over the last year, reaching an impressive 183 million, eBay is failing to maintain relevance in an
increasingly monopolised sector.

Sources Consulted: As referenced in the footnotes.

6
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ebay-to-offer-thousands-of-exclusive-deals-on-july-17th-
300675784.html
7
https://www.interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2019/ranking/
8
https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank
9
https://brandirectory.com/rankings/global/
10
https://brandirectory.com/rankings/global/