A marketplace is a website or app where many sellers offer their products to buyers that the platform brings in. Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Zalando and Vinted are marketplaces. The platform owns the traffic, the checkout and the rules. You own your products and your listings, and you pay a share of each sale for access to the buyers.

Marketplaces concern almost every seller at some point. A creator selling prints wonders whether Etsy would bring more orders than their own page. A small brand considers Amazon to reach more people. The question is never only "will I sell more there?" It is "what will each sale cost me, and what do I give up to get it?"

What is a marketplace?

A marketplace is a multi-seller platform. Buyers search one catalog made of listings from thousands of independent sellers. The platform handles discovery, payment and often dispute resolution. Sellers handle products, stock, pricing within the rules, and usually shipping.

What a marketplace is not:

  • It is not your store. Your own online store, or storefront, is a site where only your products appear, on your domain, under your rules.
  • It is not a retailer buying from you. A retailer buys your stock and resells it. On a marketplace, you stay the seller of record and the platform takes a cut.
  • It is not a sales channel you control. The platform can change its fees, its search ranking or its policies at any time, and can suspend your account.

Related vocabulary: commission (or referral fee, a percentage of each sale), listing fee (a fixed amount to publish a product), fulfillment fee (when the platform stores and ships for you), marketplace ads (paid placement inside the platform's search), and buy box (the offer shown by default when several sellers list the same product).

Why it matters

The main trade-off is between traffic and margin. A marketplace gives you buyers who are already shopping. In exchange, you pay more per sale and you do not get the customer.

A worked example. A brand sells a $40 ceramic mug. Product and packaging cost $12. Shipping costs the seller $6.

On a marketplace:

  • Commission of 15%: $6.00.
  • Payment and listing fees, about $1.00.
  • Internal ads to rank on page one, about $4.00 per sale.
  • Margin per sale: $40 − $12 − $6 − $6 − $1 − $4 = $11.

On your own store, with no platform commission:

  • Payment processing at about 3%: $1.20.
  • Paid social traffic, about $10.00 per sale at first.
  • Margin per first sale: $40 − $12 − $6 − $1.20 − $10 = $10.80.

The first sale looks almost the same. The difference comes with the second one. On your store, you have the buyer's email and they agreed to hear from you. A repeat order through an email costs close to nothing in acquisition, so its margin is about $20.80. On the marketplace, the buyer is the platform's customer. Each future order goes through the same commission, and the platform may show them a competitor's mug next time. Over three orders, the store earns about $52.40 from the customer, the marketplace about $33. That gap is what customer lifetime value measures.

How it works

Selling on a marketplace follows the same steps on most platforms:

  • Open a seller account. Some platforms charge a monthly subscription, others charge only per sale.
  • Create listings. You upload products with titles, photos and attributes in the platform's format. Listings must follow strict rules on images and wording.
  • Get ranked. The platform's search decides who sees your listing. Ranking depends on price, sales history, reviews, shipping speed and increasingly on how much you spend on the platform's ads.
  • Receive the order. The buyer pays the platform. You see the order with limited customer data, often a name and a shipping address, sometimes a masked email.
  • Ship or let the platform ship. You ship yourself, or send stock to the platform's warehouses and pay fulfillment and storage fees.
  • Get paid. The platform deducts commission and fees, then pays the rest on a schedule, often every one or two weeks.

To compare a marketplace with your own store, calculate for each channel:

  • Net per order = price − product cost − shipping − commission − fees − ads per order.
  • Customer value = net per first order + (expected repeat orders × net per repeat order).
  • Choose where to put effort based on customer value, not on the first order.

Benchmarks and examples

Marketplace fees change often and vary by category. Typical ranges:

  • General marketplaces (Amazon, eBay): 8% to 15% commission on most categories, plus fulfillment fees if the platform ships.
  • Handmade and creative (Etsy): around 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee, payment processing, and an extra fee on sales from the platform's offsite ads.
  • Fashion marketplaces: 15% to 25% commission is common.
  • Digital marketplaces for templates, courses or presets: 30% to 50% of each sale is common.
  • Your own store: only payment processing, usually 1.5% to 3.5% plus a fixed fee, and whatever your store platform charges on top.

Situations:

  • A creator sells digital planners at $15. A digital marketplace keeps 40%, so $6. On their own store, processing costs about $0.75. At 200 sales a month, that is a $1,050 difference.
  • A brand launching a new product uses Amazon to get reviews and early volume, then puts a leaflet in each package pointing to its own store for refills, where it keeps the customer.
  • A store running dropshipping on a marketplace with thin 20% margins finds that a 15% commission leaves almost nothing once returns are counted.

Common mistakes

  • Comparing only commissions. Add ads, fulfillment, storage, returns and payout delays. The true cost of a marketplace sale is often 25% to 35% of the price.
  • Building everything on one marketplace. A policy change or account suspension can stop all revenue overnight.
  • Ignoring the lost customer. A marketplace buyer rarely becomes your repeat customer. Count lifetime value, not just the first order.
  • Pricing lower on your store than on the marketplace without checking rules. Some platforms penalize sellers whose products are cheaper elsewhere.
  • Managing stock in two places by hand. Separate stock counts lead to overselling and cancelled orders, which hurt your marketplace ranking.

Best practices

  • Use the marketplace for discovery, your store for relationships. Let the platform bring first orders, and give buyers a reason to come back to your own site.
  • Know your net per channel. Calculate net per order and customer value for each channel every quarter, with real fees from your statements.
  • Keep your best offers on your own store. Bundles, exclusive colors or loyalty discounts give buyers a reason to order directly.
  • Build an email list from day one. Every customer you own is one you can sell to again without a commission.
  • Keep one source of truth for products and stock. Update prices and stock in one catalog to avoid overselling.
  • Diversify. No single channel should bring more than about half of your revenue.

In Roctify

Roctify is not a marketplace. Your products are never listed next to other sellers, and there is no commission on your sales. It gives you your own store and link-in-bio page, both with checkout on your custom domain, so the buyer is your customer from the first order. You get their email, you can reach them again with email marketing (Creator plan and up), and you decide the rules on pricing and discount codes.

You pay 0% transaction fees on every plan, including Free. Only the payment provider's processing fee applies, through Stripe, PayPal or cash on delivery. Products, variants, SKUs, stock and orders live in one shared catalog used by every Roctify channel, so if you also sell on a marketplace, your store's catalog stays the reference you check your prices and stock against. Reports show revenue and orders from your own channels, which gives you the net figures to compare with your marketplace statements.

FAQ

Should I sell on a marketplace or on my own store?

Often both, with different roles. A marketplace brings buyers who are already searching, which helps a new brand get first sales. Your own store keeps the margin and the customer. Most sellers do best when the marketplace brings discovery and the store brings repeat orders.

How much does a marketplace really cost per sale?

Commission is only the start. Once you add listing fees, payment fees, the ads you need to rank and fulfillment if the platform ships, the total is often 25% to 35% of the sale price. Calculate it from your real payout statements, not from the published rate.

Can I move marketplace customers to my own store?

Most marketplaces forbid contacting buyers to pull them off the platform. You can still include your brand, a website address and a reason to visit in the package, as long as you follow the platform's rules. Over time, a good share of repeat buyers find the brand directly.