Selling on a marketplace gets you started quickly: the traffic is there, payment is there, trust is there. But businesses still selling only on marketplaces three years later get stuck, because they don’t know their own customers. Before deciding, look at the real cost of both sides.
The visible and invisible price of a marketplace
- Commission and service fees: a meaningful share of the sale price, depending on category
- Price competition: among dozens of sellers with the same product, price becomes the only difference
- Customer data: the buyer stays the platform’s customer, not yours
- Rule changes: campaign and ranking rules can change overnight
What your own store costs
Your own store pays no commission, but you build traffic and trust from zero. Without a budget for ads, content and SEO it stalls at “I built it but it doesn’t sell”. In exchange, the customer list, the brand and price control are yours.
The right answer is usually “both”
The healthiest setup is a marketplace as your customer-acquisition channel and your own store as the place you keep loyal customers. Even a single card in the box — “10% off your next order on our site” — is enough to move people to your own channel.
A marketplace helps you find the customer; your own store helps you keep them.
When does the move make sense?
- If your monthly order count has become steady
- If total commission has passed the cost of a site plus ads
- If you have repeat customers (the same person buying a second time)
- If searches for your brand name have started
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