Selling on eBay puts you in front of millions of customers while selling on your own Shopify store creates a branded, guided experience for your customers.
With both channels offering complimentary benefits, why not do both?!
You can integrate eBay with your Shopify store and manage both channels from one admin panel. And in this post, we’ll show you how.
With a Shopify store, you’re able to create a truly branded experience for your customers that selling through eBay simply can’t match.
We recommend adding an eBay integration to your Shopify store to get the maximum customer reach while maintaining brand integrity and your own unique voice.
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There are several great reasons for integrating eBay with Shopify. Each platform comes with its own share of benefits for merchants. Let’s look at the benefits of each to get an idea of what brands can gain by combining them.
Here’s a high-level view of these benefits before we go into each in more detail.
| Platform | Benefits | What It Means for Brands |
|---|---|---|
| eBay | Reach more shoppers | Access to 135 million global shoppers boosts your market reach. |
| Recognized name globally | Leverage eBay’s global brand and advertising to ease your marketing efforts. | |
| Low bar to entry | Easy startup requirements make it simple to test the waters without a big commitment. | |
| Shopify | Creates a better customer experience | Full control over the customer journey, from landing to checkout. |
| Reduces reliance on another company | Own your business operations, free from the whims of eBay’s future decisions. | |
| Enables brand building | Create a unique online presence without competing for attention on a crowded marketplace. | |
| Both | Build a varied customer base | Cater to both eBay loyalists and those who prefer your enhanced Shopify experience. |
| Build a sales funnel | Use eBay as a marketing tool to funnel customers to your Shopify store. | |
| Manage channels from one place | Sync inventory and orders to eliminate the hassle of manual updates. |
Ebay is a huge marketplace with a global reach. Having a presence there can boost sales and increase the traffic to your Shopify store. eBay is great for Shopify merchants because it:
While eBay is fantastic for reaching a wider audience, having your own store is the best way to win loyalty and build lifetime value. Striking out on your own:
Combining the two channels and adopting an online strategy that sees you selling on both also has several benefits. It allows you to:
Integration is a straightforward process, but before you start there are a few things you should do to make sure everything runs smoothly during integration and afterward.
Before you install an integration app, make sure there are no similar apps running on your Shopify store. Running multiple integration apps can confuse the software and result in integration failure.
If you’re selling on multiple marketplaces, consider using an integration app that supports all the channels you need, rather than trying to manage several different tools.
Shopify is a platform for your own online store, whereas eBay is a marketplace.
They offer different services and so their policies, terms, and conditions are also different. Make sure you understand them, especially those about prohibited items, listing rules, and seller behavior.
A good example is CBD products: while you’re okay to sell CBD-related products on Shopify (with certain restrictions), eBay prohibits almost all sellers from offering CBD-based goods through its platform.
If a customer finds price differences between eBay and Shopify or thinks they’ll have to wait longer for their order on one or the other channel, it harms trust in your brand and undermines the customer experience.
Make sure you’re providing a consistent level of service across channels.
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eBay has removed its sales channel from Shopify, so you can no longer add eBay to your Shopify store directly through the Shopify admin.
But fear not, there are plenty of third-party apps out there that still let you integrate the two.
Here’s our rundown of the best ones to consider for your store:
A widely used and well-respected app, CedCommerce Importer offers you the ability to import products from online marketplaces (including eBay) into your Shopify store.
It allows you to manage your inventory and product listings across eBay from within the Shopify admin panel.
Free version:
Bronze: $29/month
Silver: $49/month
Gold: $79/month
Formerly called Codisto, this app lets you sell across all the major online marketplaces, not just eBay. So, if you also sell on Walmart and Amazon from Shopify, this could be the one for you.
It’s free to install and run (up to 50 orders per month) which makes it a great choice if you’re a small seller.
The price cap at $99/month also benefits larger brands with a marketplace presence.
Marketplace Connect is free to install, and you can use it free of charge for your first 50 eBay orders every month. After that, the app takes a 1% cut of every order made via a synched marketplace (capped at $99/month.)
Marketed as an app to sync your inventory management across multiple channels, this handy piece of software can be used to integrate your Shopify store and eBay account.
Once set up, you can manage all your channels from Trunk’s interface, which runs in your browser.
As its name suggests, it provides real-time updates to your inventory records, offering you an up-to-the-minute picture of stock levels.
If you sell on several channels, this app could be of much use beyond eBay integration.
Essential:
$35/month up to 100 monthly orders, $45/month for 101-200 monthly orders, $59/month for 201-400 monthly orders, $89/month for 401-800 monthly orders. This comes with:
Pro:
$39/month up to 100 monthly orders, $59/month for 101-200 monthly orders, $79/month for 201-400 monthly orders, $119/month for 401-800 monthly orders. This comes with:
This integration app is aimed at Shopify and eBay sellers who need to list, track, and sync 1,000s of products.
It provides near-real-time sync on large catalogs. It also comes with an easy-to-use interface and has plenty of customization options.
Unlike some of the other apps we’ve featured, Professional Importer is built and designed solely for eBay. It offers several features that are eBay-specific, helpful if you’re only or mainly interested in selling on the eBay marketplace.
A free version allows you to import up to five items. Their Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers all offer inventory and price sync and priority customer support.
This app used to be called One Etsy but changed its name to reflect its multichannel orientation.
It allows you to sync your inventory and product listings across eBay, Etsy, and Shopify and manage them from one central hub.
Free version:
Pro: $19/month:
Plus: $39/month:
Business: $199/month:
Another well-liked integration app, LitCommerce supports several currencies and is designed for merchants with a high volume of sales.
If you’re a bigger brand, the bulk upload and management of products can save you valuable time.
Free version:
Starter: $29/month
Standard: $69/month
Advanced: $149/month
As of December 2022, eBay removed its sales channel app from Shopify. You can still integrate the two quickly and easily—you’ll just need to use a third-party app to make it work.
Each of the apps we’ve profiled has its own integration process. Here, we’re showing you how to integrate our top pick for eBay integration apps, CedCommerce.
CedCommerce is a widely used and very well-rated app for eBay/Shopify integration. Its ease of use and excellent reputation for customer support make it a great all-rounder when compared to similar apps.
However, if you’re using a different app, the integration process will be broadly similar so the steps below will be of use to you too.
Go to the relevant app page in the Shopify app store and click ‘Install’
You’ll then be taken to your Shopify admin. Again, click the ‘Install app’ button.
Enter your details to register the app to your store.
Once registered, go to the accounts section in CedCommerce and click on the ‘Link your account’ button under ‘Ebay Importer’.
Click ‘Submit’.
You’ll then be taken to eBay. Sign into your account to complete the eBay side of setup.
Once you’re signed in, you’ll need to give the app permission to access your eBay account.
You can then head back to the CedCommerce admin to start importing your eBay products into Shopify. Go to the ‘Import/Upload’ tab to start importing.
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When you’ve integrated your eBay account with Shopify, you’re all set to start selling through both channels at once.
But it’s not always completely plain sailing—there are some common issues that online businesses run into.
Here’s how to fix them:
After you integrate, you might find you’re unable to list products on eBay and instead get one of many error messages.
While there are a range of causes for listing errors, often it can be down to differences between Shopify and eBay’s listing requirements.
It’s worth familiarizing yourself with these requirements before you integrate to minimize errors. Make sure product titles, descriptions, and images align with eBay’s standards.
Whatever app you use, sometimes things go wrong and you’ll find the syncing is less than perfect.
Discrepancies can lead to overselling on one or both platforms, which is embarrassing and damaging to your brand.
The apps with real-time inventory syncing give you the best chance of avoiding this issue.
But whatever integration tech you use, make sure you’re still manually tracking your inventory, especially during high sales periods.
While your Shopify products will usually fit into the respective eBay category, sometimes there can be mismatches.
eBay relies on category listings when deciding what results to display, so paying attention to this aspect of integration is important to maximizing your visibility.
You can automatically assign your products to categories through your integration app.
However, to maximize visibility and relevance to your customers, carefully monitor this process and make the necessary manual adjustments.
While eBay has removed its sales channel from Shopify, you can still integrate eBay with your Shopify store using one of the many integration apps available from the Shopify App Store.
There are many integration apps that have features that enable you to sync your product listings and inventory and that provide real-time updating of orders and sales across both channels. You’ll find the right app for your needs in the Shopify app store.
eBay decided to pull their Shopify app because of a poor seller experience, according to one eBay manager. He encouraged users to switch to one of the third-party integration apps that are capable of providing a better experience for merchants.
Shopify only takes a percentage of the sales that come through Shopify itself. They have no access to your eBay sales funds. Depending on the price plan you’re on, the app you use to integrate eBay and Shopify may take a percentage of your eBay sales.
You can easily sell the same products you’ve listed on Shopify through eBay by integrating the two sales channels. Real-time syncing of inventory, sales, and orders lets you manage your activities on both channels from one admin panel.
To maximize the benefits of selling on both eBay and Shopify, your Shopify store needs to be capable of building your brand and maximizing conversions.
Getting customers to click through to your store from eBay is a great first step.
But when they get there, it’s your job to provide pages, elements, and content that go beyond their expectations.
Shogun Page Builder gives you a code-free, hassle-free way to design beautiful, high-converting Shopify landing pages and stores.
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