For UK sellers, marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy) give immediate traffic at 8-15% commission. Your own store (Shopify, WooCommerce) costs more to drive traffic but owns the customer relationship. The right answer for most growing UK brands is both, with different products on each.
The decision is not philosophical. It is product-by-product, channel-by-channel economics.
How the two models differ
Selling through a marketplace means your products appear alongside competitors in a system where the customer is searching for the product category, not your brand. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, OnBuy, Wayfair, and industry-specific marketplaces all work this way.
Selling through your own store means the customer arrives at your website (usually from search, ads, or referral) and only sees your products. You own the customer email, the order history, and the relationship.
The trade-offs come down to four areas: traffic, fees, customer ownership, and brand control.
Traffic
A marketplace gives you traffic on day one. Amazon UK has roughly 27 million unique monthly visitors. List a product priced fairly with decent images and you will get views immediately.
Your own store starts with zero traffic. You build it through SEO (slow), paid ads (expensive), email (requires a list), affiliates, content, or partnerships. Getting to 1,000 visitors a month organically takes 6-12 months of consistent work.
For a new product, marketplace is usually the right starting point. For an established brand with audience, own store starts to win.
Fees
UK marketplace fees in 2026:
| Marketplace | Listing fee | Commission |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon UK (Professional plan) | £25/month | 8-15% by category |
| eBay UK | Free for first 1,000 listings | 12-15% on most categories |
| Etsy | $0.20 per listing | 6.5% transaction fee plus payment fees |
| OnBuy | Free listings | 5-9% by category |
| Notonthehighstreet | Listing fees apply | 25% commission |
Plus payment processing (typically built into the commission on Amazon, separate on Etsy and others), advertising on the marketplace if you want priority placement, and fulfilment fees if using FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon).
Your own store costs by comparison:
- Platform: £25-£80 per month.
- Payment processing: 1.5%-2.9%.
- Apps and tools: £30-£150 per month for a typical setup.
- Customer acquisition cost: this is where most of the spend goes. Typical UK e-commerce CAC ranges from £8 to £50 per customer depending on product.
For high-volume commodity products, marketplace economics are usually better. For high-margin branded products with repeat purchase, own store wins because the second purchase is essentially free.
Customer ownership
This is the biggest hidden cost of marketplace selling. When a customer buys from your Amazon listing, Amazon owns the customer. You cannot email them outside the Amazon platform. You cannot retarget them. You cannot bring them back to your own store at lower cost.
Your own store gives you everything: email, purchase history, browsing behaviour, the ability to build a relationship. Repeat customers cost almost nothing to win back. They are the foundation of long-term e-commerce profitability.
For products with no repeat purchase (one-off gifts, seasonal items), this matters less. For consumables, fashion, or anything that gets re-bought, customer ownership is decisive.
Brand control
On a marketplace, your product sits next to competitors. The customer sees them side by side. Reviews appear publicly. Amazon controls the page layout, the recommended products, the buy-box logic.
On your own store, the entire experience is yours. No competitors in view. Your messaging, your photography, your story. This matters most when:
- You have a differentiated product where the brand explanation is the selling point.
- You are charging a premium over commodity alternatives.
- You sell something that needs context, education, or trust to convert.
How to use both
Most successful UK e-commerce businesses run both channels with different roles:
Marketplace as the volume channel. List your most commodity-like products. Use it for customer acquisition. Accept the lower margin in exchange for the traffic.
Own store as the brand channel. List your full range, especially newer or premium products. Build the email list. Run loyalty. Use it for repeat purchase and lifetime value.
Some sellers list different SKUs on each channel to manage the price comparison and protect margin. Others use the marketplace for the entry-level product range and the own store for the premium tier.
When to skip a marketplace entirely
There are categories where marketplaces do not work or are explicitly poor fits:
- Bespoke or commissioned items where the buyer needs to talk to you first.
- Services rather than physical products.
- B2B sales requiring negotiation.
- Categories where the marketplace has strict policies that conflict with your brand (alcohol, supplements with health claims, certain crafts).
- High-priced items where the marketplace fees would crush margin.
When to skip your own store entirely
Few UK e-commerce businesses skip an own store completely. The lowest-friction route is a single product or a tightly-curated range where marketplace traffic is enough and you do not need direct customer relationships. This describes some Amazon-native sellers and Etsy makers, particularly in the first 12-18 months of business.
Bottom line
For most growing UK e-commerce brands, run both. List commodity SKUs on Amazon for volume. Build your own store for brand and repeat purchase. Use Amazon to find customers and your email list to keep them.