If you’re thinking about selling products online, you’ve probably already asked yourself this question: should I build my own online store, or should I sell on Amazon, Etsy, or another marketplace?

It’s one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make for your business, and the internet is full of terrible advice about it. Marketplace evangelists will tell you that building your own store is a waste of money. E-commerce platform salespeople will tell you that marketplaces are a dead end. Neither is completely right.

I’ve helped businesses in Spain navigate this exact decision dozens of times. Here’s what I’ve actually seen work, and what I’ve seen fail spectacularly.

The Marketplace Proposition: Instant Access, Hidden Costs

Let’s start with what marketplaces actually offer, because the pitch is genuinely compelling.

Amazon España gets over 200 million visits per month. Etsy has 90+ million active buyers globally. When you list a product on these platforms, you’re instantly placing it in front of a massive audience that’s already in buying mode. You don’t need to worry about driving traffic, it’s already there.

For a small business in Spain, this is transformative. Instead of spending months building a website, doing SEO, running ads, and hoping someone finds you, you can list a product on Amazon this afternoon and potentially make a sale tonight.

But here’s what the marketplace pitch conveniently leaves out:

The fees are substantial. Amazon takes 7-15% per sale (depending on category) plus fulfilment fees if you use FBA. Etsy takes 6.5% transaction fee plus listing fees plus payment processing. On a 30 euro product, you might lose 5-8 euros in fees before you’ve even accounted for product costs and shipping.

You don’t own the customer relationship. When someone buys your product on Amazon, Amazon owns that customer. You can’t email them, you can’t retarget them, you can’t build a relationship. They’re Amazon’s customer who happened to buy your product.

You’re at the platform’s mercy. Amazon can change its algorithm tomorrow and tank your visibility. They can change fee structures. They can suspend your account. I’ve seen businesses that were doing 10,000 euros per month on Amazon get suspended overnight for minor policy violations and lose everything.

The race to the bottom is real. On Amazon especially, you’re competing directly with other sellers, often including Amazon itself. Price pressure is relentless. If you sell a generic product, someone will always undercut you. Margins get squeezed until they barely exist.

Your Own Store: Control, Cost, and the Traffic Problem

Having your own online store flips the equation. You control everything: the customer experience, the branding, the data, the pricing. Nobody can change the rules on you overnight.

But let’s be real about the challenges.

The biggest one is traffic. When you launch your own store, your visitor count on day one is exactly zero. Every single visitor has to be earned through SEO, paid ads, social media, email marketing, or word of mouth. This is expensive and slow.

I’ve written about whether you even need an e-commerce website, and one of the key points is this: a beautiful online store with no traffic is just an expensive digital brochure.

The cost of building a proper store matters too. A decent custom e-commerce website runs 3,000-5,000 euros minimum. Then there’s hosting, maintenance, security, and all the ongoing operational costs.

But here’s the flip side, and this is crucial: every euro you spend on your own store builds an asset you own. The email list you build is yours. The SEO rankings you earn are yours. The brand recognition you create is yours. The customer data is yours. None of this can be taken away by a platform policy change.

The Real Comparison: Numbers That Matter

Let me put some real numbers on this. Say you’re selling a product for 50 euros with a product cost of 15 euros.

On Amazon (FBA):

On your own store:

That’s 8.25 euros more per sale on your own store. But, and this is the big but, you need to factor in the cost of acquiring that customer. If you’re spending 10 euros on ads to get each sale, your own store is actually worse than Amazon.

The break-even point typically comes when you can acquire customers for less than the marketplace fee difference. For most businesses, that happens when you have strong organic traffic (SEO), a solid email list, or good social media presence.

When the Marketplace Wins

You’re just starting out. If you have a product but no audience, no brand recognition, and no marketing budget, marketplaces give you immediate access to buyers. Use them to validate your product and generate initial revenue.

You sell commodity products. If you’re selling phone cases, generic clothing, or anything where brand doesn’t differentiate you, marketplace traffic is more valuable than brand building. People buying commodity products search on Amazon, not Google.

You want to test a market. Before investing thousands in a custom store, list on a marketplace and see if people actually buy. It’s the cheapest market research you can do.

Logistics is your weakness. Amazon FBA handles storage, packing, shipping, and returns. If the idea of managing logistics makes you break out in hives, FBA is worth the fee.

When Your Own Store Wins

You have a strong brand. If people are searching for you by name, you need your own store. Sending brand-aware customers to Amazon is literally giving Amazon your margin for no reason.

You sell premium or artisan products. Marketplace environments cheapen premium products. A 200 euro handmade ceramic piece looks like a 200 euro handmade ceramic piece on your beautifully designed website. On Amazon, it looks overpriced next to the 30 euro factory-made alternative.

You want repeat customers. If your business model relies on customer loyalty and repeat purchases, subscriptions, consumables, seasonal collections, you need to own the relationship. Marketplaces actively prevent you from building loyalty.

Your margins are tight. When marketplace fees eat 15-25% of your revenue, tight margins become nonexistent margins. Your own store keeps more money in your pocket.

You have existing traffic sources. If you already have a social media following, an email list, or strong SEO through content marketing and a website that generates returns, sending that traffic to your own store is dramatically more profitable than sending it to Amazon.

The Smart Approach: Both

Here’s what the best businesses I’ve worked with actually do: they use both, strategically.

Marketplaces serve as a customer acquisition channel. You list your products on Amazon or Etsy, accept the lower margins, but use it to reach customers you couldn’t reach otherwise. Inside every package, you include a card with your website URL and an incentive to buy direct next time (10% off, free shipping, exclusive products).

Your own store serves as the long-term profit engine. Once a customer discovers you, whether through a marketplace, social media, or search, you want them buying direct. Higher margins, owned relationship, repeat business potential.

This dual approach works especially well in Spain. I’ve seen a client who makes artisan soaps in Granada use this exact strategy. She launched on Etsy, got her first 200 sales, used those reviews and customer feedback to refine her products, then launched her own store. Now, 70% of her revenue comes from her own store (higher margins) and 30% still comes through Etsy (new customer acquisition). Her overall profitability is significantly higher than if she’d gone all-in on either channel.

The Spain-Specific Angle

A few things about selling online that are specific to the Spanish market:

Wallapop and Milanuncios are massive in Spain for certain categories. Second-hand, local delivery, services, if your product fits, don’t overlook these platforms. They have minimal fees and a huge Spanish user base.

Spanish consumers love Bizum. If you have your own store, offering Bizum as a payment option is a competitive advantage. It’s instant, free, and everyone in Spain has it. Most marketplace platforms don’t support it, so this is a genuine differentiator for your own store.

Shipping within Spain is relatively cheap. Correos, MRW, SEUR, and GLS all offer competitive rates for peninsular shipping. This makes the logistics of running your own store more manageable than in larger countries.

The LOPD and LSSI (Spain’s data protection and e-commerce laws) apply to your own store but are handled by the marketplace when selling there. If you go the own-store route, make sure you’re compliant, it’s not optional.

Making the Decision

Here’s my honest framework:

Start on a marketplace if: you’re new, you’re testing, you don’t have an audience yet, or logistics terrify you.

Build your own store if: you have a brand, you have traffic sources, you sell premium products, or you need repeat customers.

Do both if: you’re serious about building a sustainable online business. Use marketplaces for acquisition, your own store for retention and profit.

And whatever you choose, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The business that launches on Etsy this week will always beat the business that’s still “planning their perfect website” six months from now.

Need help figuring out which approach makes sense for your business? Fork IT Studio can help, whether that’s building your own store or optimising your marketplace presence.