Is Amazon or eBay more ethical?

As online marketplaces, Amazon and eBay connect buyers and sellers across the world. Over 90% of shoppers in the UK use Amazon, and it has transformed the market for books, music, and other items since its launch in 1994.

Amazon is also known, however, for its aggressive tax avoidance, exploitation of workers’ rights, and massive emissions. 

So is eBay any better? And should buyers use eBay or Amazon when buying or selling secondhand? 

Climate change

Amazon

Amazon receives an extremely low score in Ethical Consumer’s climate change rating. The company has identified its main climate impacts and is taking some action to reduce them. For example, it has increased electrification of its vehicles, expanded renewable energy use, and engaged with suppliers to reduce manufacturing emissions.

However, in its 2025 sustainability report, it provided no evidence that it reduced its emissions in line with international agreements to reach net zero by 2050. In fact, its emissions appeared to have increased between 2023 and 2024 by approximately 6%.

The company has also been accused of misleading messaging. In 2022, investigative news outlet Reveal published an article titled, ‘Private Report Shows How Amazon Drastically Undercounts Its Carbon Footprint’. It stated that the Centre for Investigative Reporting had obtained a carbon footprint report from the corporation, which showed that "Amazon takes responsibility for the full climate impact only of products with an Amazon brand label, which make up about 1% of its online sales.”

“There’s another 39% of sales that Amazon should be counting if it were using the same accounting as its peers. These are the products that Amazon buys from manufacturers and sells directly to the customer,” it added.

The company did not appear to have responded to the report. 

eBay

eBay received a good score in Ethical Consumer’s climate change rating. The company has identified its main impacts, reporting on all emissions including those from the delivery of products on its marketplace – by far the biggest proportion.

It stated that it had worked with the courier EVRi “to bring more electric vans to the road in the UK”, and had encouraged the U.S. postal service to shift more packages from air to ground transport. Significantly, the company is also selling a large number of more climate-friendly products. "As of 2024, over 40% of our sales come from pre-owned and refurbished items,” it said.

In fact, between 2019 and 2024, the company reduced its main climate impacts in line with international targets to reach net zero by 2050. And it has also set science-based targets in line with these goals for the future.

Tax Avoidance

Amazon

Amazon is widely known for its aggressive tax avoidance. Ethical Consumer calculated that over half a billion pounds (£575,000,000) may have been lost to the UK public purse from the corporation tax avoidance of Amazon alone in 2024. That could have amounted to paying the yearly salary of 23,504 additional nurses or 1.9 million additional winter fuel payments.

The Athena Coalition – a US organisation of local and national groups opposing the online giant – writes: “It’s we who should decide what is best for us in our communities — not big corporations. We can stop Amazon’s sweetheart tax deals from local governments, draining of public resources, and big-footing into our neighborhoods with no regard for the rest of us.”

The corporation receives the lowest possible score in Ethical Consumer’s tax avoidance rating and we have been calling for a boycott of the company over its tax avoidance strategies since 2012. 

eBay

Unfortunately, eBay doesn’t fare much better in Ethical Consumer’s tax avoidance rating. While the company has not received the same public scrutiny over its tax strategies in recent years, it owns multiple subsidiaries in tax havens.

For example, Ethical Consumer found that it owned holding companies – which are high risk for tax avoidance – in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The company had not published a tax policy or any information about how the companies in tax havens were used. 

Workers’ rights 

Amazon

Amazon has repeatedly been criticised by workers, communities and campaigners for its exploitative working practices.

Workers have frequently accused the company of union busting. For example, in 2024, the UK-based union GMB took Amazon to court, alleging that the company had engaged in widespread attempts to coerce staff to cancel their trade union membership. Examples given included erecting QR codes in Amazon warehouses that generated an email to a union’s membership department requesting that their membership be cancelled, and holding hour long anti-union seminars.

An Amazon spokesperson told the Retail Gazette that the meetings were “entirely voluntary” to help employees make an informed decision and that it had erected the QR codes to help those who wanted to cancel their membership.

Likewise, in 2022, the academic UC Berkeley Labor Center published a report which stated among other allegations that Amazon “Management imposed pressure and instilled fear through a massive communications offensive in weeks leading up to union elections in Bessemer, Alabama, and Staten Island, New York, led by anti-union consultants paid thousands of dollars per day by Amazon”.

eBay

eBay scores extremely poorly when it comes to workers’ rights. While the company has a supplier code of conduct outlining some basic requirements for treatment of workers, this does not cover a number of vital rights such as eliminating child labour, payment of a living wage, and limiting the working week to 48 hours.

The company also has not published a list of its suppliers, which is a crucial step towards allowing workers and campaign groups to hold corporations to account for abuses in their supply chains.

eBay has also faced major criticism over union busting. In 2023, TCG Player became the first union to represent workers from the company. According to an article on online media outlet Vice in November that year, following TCG Player’s election, eBay amended its Human Rights Policy, removing the statement "eBay also respects workers’ rights to unionize and commits to bargain in good faith with any relevant associations or labor unions".

The New York City and State comptrollers – the country and city’s chief fiscal officers – wrote to the company stating, “The circumstances surrounding the revision to the Human Rights Policy are unsettling and raise investor concerns about the Board’s commitment to human rights and its independent oversight.”

The comptrollers' letter also stated: "In the run-up to the March 11, 2023, union election at TCGPlayer, management was alleged to have violated U.S. labor law by surveilling employees at work, holding anti-union meetings where anti-union messages were disseminated, and taking note of employees who displayed support for the union”.

An eBay spokesperson did not immediately respond to Vice’s request for comment.

Animal rights

Amazon

Amazon sells many animal products through its grocery stores Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods, as well as through its online marketplace.

Ethical Consumer looked for policies on beef, eggs, milk, fish, chicken and pork. While the company sold some organic and free range eggs and some organic beef, it did not appear to sell any of the other products certified to these higher standards. This meant that the company would be widely selling intensively farmed meat and dairy.

In 2023, animal rights group PETA raised major concerns about animal abuses in Amazon’s supply chains. It stated, "At Amazon’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday, PETA will submit a statement challenging the company’s subsidiary Whole Foods’ continued sale of Thai coconut milk even after learning of PETA Asia’s investigations revealing that monkeys are forced to pick coconuts in Thailand and are trained through fear of punishment, caged in isolation, and chained for life."

Amazon therefore scored poorly in Ethical Consumer’s animal products rating.

eBay

Unfortunately, eBay doesn’t perform much better when it comes to animal rights. While it does not itself sell meat, dairy or other animal products, its marketplace includes products that are likely to have been tested on animals.

No statement was found that eBay had a policy against animal testing. Many cleaning and cosmetics products were found for sale, sectors in which animal testing of ingredients is widespread. 

So Amazon vs eBay - which is more ethical?

In this article, we have compared Amazon and eBay across a number of key ethical issues.

Neither company scores very well across our ethical ratings. You can see this in our bookshops guide, where there are lots of higher scoring brands than either of these two companies.

If you use eBay for buying and selling secondhand, you may like to check out alternative online platforms which we explore in separate articles:

• Buying secondhand online
• Selling secondhand online

For comparison between Amazon and eBay, in our guides, see the bookshops guide or Ethical Online Shopping guide. 

To see their detailed ratings please subscribe to Ethical Consumer.