Same SKU listed at materially different prices on eBay vs Amazon UK. MAP / brand-consistency risk.
At a glance
Cross-platform SKU price comparison. Counts SKUs where the eBay listing price differs from the Amazon listing price by more than the configured drift threshold (default 15%). The “MAP / brand-consistency” lens, drift signals either a stale listing on one channel, a deliberate-but-unmonitored channel pricing strategy, or a third-party reseller drifting under your floor.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your eBay data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK consumer-electronics seller running ebay.co.uk + amazon.co.uk on a 1,200-SKU shared catalogue. Snapshot 28 Apr 26.
Five things to notice:
- Three flagged SKUs represent 923 units of monthly Amazon velocity. Per-SKU drift impact varies. BLU-HDMI-2M (480 u/mo, eBay 34% under Amazon) is the most material: if the seller ships 480 a month at £4.49 lower than Amazon, that’s £2,155 / month of margin walked because eBay buyers can see they’re getting a “deal” while Amazon buyers (or arbitrageurs) buy on eBay then resell on Amazon.
- Drift goes in both directions. SKUs over-priced on eBay (HDMI-4K-3M, +37.9% over Amazon) lose sales to Amazon: Amazon-side velocity is 65 units; eBay-side velocity for the same SKU could be 5 to 10 units, suppressed by the price gap. The fix is repricing eBay down to match Amazon.
- Arbitrage risk on under-priced SKUs. A 34% eBay-vs-Amazon gap on a high-velocity item invites arbitrageurs to scrape eBay listings and relist on Amazon at the gap. The seller’s eBay storefront becomes a wholesale source for third-party Amazon resellers, this looks like demand but is structurally bad (the seller’s Amazon Buy Box owners may now be the arbitrageur, not the seller).
- Promo tails are the most-common preventable cause. Sellers run a 14-day Easter promo on eBay, set the eBay listing price 20% below Amazon, and forget to revert. The card catches this within the next 24-hour scan; without the card, expired promos can persist for months.
- MAP violations matter for branded resellers. If the seller is an authorised reseller of a third-party brand, the brand’s MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policy may forbid pricing more than X% below MSRP. eBay listings drifting under Amazon often violate MAP first; brands monitor this and can revoke reseller status. Watch the Catalogue Drift card alongside any MAP-policy thresholds you’ve negotiated.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in eBay Seller Hub (eBay-side data):Seller Hub → Listings → Active, current eBay listing prices. Sort by price descending or filter by category to spot-check.eBay alone doesn’t show drift vs Amazon; this card is a Vortex IQ cross-platform composite. To reconcile manually, pull the eBay listing price from Seller Hub and the Amazon listing price from Amazon Seller Central per SKU. Where to look on Amazon (Amazon-side data):
Amazon Seller Central → Inventory → Manage Inventory. Amazon listing prices.Timing, settlement, and reporting-lag table:
Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual cross-platform audit:
Cross-connector reconciliation against other connectors the same seller may run:
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
What’s the right drift threshold for my business? Default is 15%. Tune lower (e.g. 10%) for branded MAP-policy resellers where small drifts are MAP violations. Tune higher (e.g. 25%) for clearance / liquidation sellers where channel-by-channel pricing flexibility is intentional. The threshold is workspace-configurable. Why GMV-of-fees framing on a price-comparison card? Because the outcome of drift is GMV migration. A SKU under-priced on eBay relative to Amazon will sell more on eBay (good for eBay GMV) but at thinner margin (bad for net), and create arbitrage opportunities (bad for long-term channel mix). The card surfaces the price gap; the GMV consequence is in eBay vs Amazon Revenue Share. Best Offer makes my eBay “effective price” lower than my asking price, does the card see this? No. The card compares listing prices (what’s displayed publicly), not realised order prices. If you accept Best Offers averaging 10% under asking, your effective eBay price is 10% lower than the card shows. For a fully-converged read, run the Vortex Mind investigation on the SKU; it pulls realised prices from order history. My multi-site SKUs are matched incorrectly, what now? SKU matching uses GTIN / EAN / MPN as the gold standard, with title-and-brand fallback. False matches happen when SKU titles are very similar across non-identical products (e.g. different sizes of the same model). Workspace settings let you enforce GTIN-only matching for higher precision at the cost of coverage; this is the recommended setting for branded resellers. What if Amazon repriced via the Buy Box and my listing didn’t? Amazon’s algorithmic Buy Box repricer can change a SKU’s displayed price within minutes; the Buy Box winner’s price is what buyers see. The card reads the Buy Box price by default. If you’re not the Buy Box winner, your own Amazon listing price may differ from the Buy Box; toggle the workspace setting to compare against your-own-price instead. Why doesn’t FBA / FBM split appear here? FBA / FBM is a fulfilment-method distinction, not a pricing one. Both FBA and FBM listings can use any price; the card compares displayed prices regardless of fulfilment method. The card flagged a SKU because Amazon dropped 20% overnight, should I match? Not automatically. Amazon’s algorithmic price changes can be transient (a competitor briefly dropped, Amazon’s repricer chased, then both reverted). Wait 48 to 72 hours before responding to a fresh drift alert; the card’s 30D window will keep tracking the SKU. If the gap persists, then reprice or investigate. Does this affect Promoted Listings ROI? Indirectly. Under-priced eBay listings convert more easily but at lower margin; Promoted spend on under-priced listings has higher conversion but lower per-conversion profit. Over-priced eBay listings convert less easily; Promoted spend is wasted. Either way, drift degrades Promoted ROI; fix drift before scaling Promoted spend. Action playbook when this card alerts (>10 SKUs drifting >15%):
- Sort the flagged-SKU list by Amazon-side velocity descending. Highest-velocity drifts first.
- For each: check the eBay listing’s recent price history (Vortex Mind can pull this). If a stale promo, revert. If no promo, match the Amazon price.
- Pause Promoted spend on flagged SKUs until pricing is reconciled.
- If the seller is a branded reseller with MAP policy, flag potential MAP violations to the brand-management team.
- Set up the Catalogue Drift card as a daily-checked dashboard tile to catch new drifts within 24 hours of occurrence.