Own Website or Marketplace? A Decision Guide for Product Sellers

This isn't a false choice; the marketplace side has real advantages. The question isn't "which is better," it's "which is right for your situation." This article compares both honestly, then makes concrete the hybrid approach that's realistic for most businesses.

Short answer: it depends on your situation

The marketplace's real advantages

The biggest advantage of opening a store on a marketplace is not having to build traffic from zero. You join a platform with millions of monthly visitors and reach potential customers through its search, category pages, and its own ad/recommendation systems. The platform's established trust (payment protection, return policy, brand recognition) works in your favor too; a new customer may be more comfortable buying from a marketplace they already know than from a brand-new site they've never heard of.

Setup is fast too: product listing, payment infrastructure, and shipping integration usually come ready-made, so you can start selling without the development timeline a website build requires.

The marketplace's cost and limits

These advantages come at a price: commission and lost control. Per Amazon.com.tr's official pricing page, sales commission ranges from 6% to 20% depending on category (for example, 6% for computers, 15.5% for clothing, 17% for shoes and bags), plus a fixed monthly membership fee of 99 TL+VAT (currently waived under a promotion). Trendyol and Hepsiburada similarly charge category-based commission, but exact rates sit behind seller-panel logins and we could not confirm them from a public, verifiable source, so check your own account.

Control is limited too: your store page's design, product presentation, and much of the customer experience stay bound to the platform's template. Since price comparison happens directly within the platform, your differentiation can largely get reduced to price and review score.

What commission does to your margin, concretely

Let's make this concrete: take Amazon.com.tr's stated 15.5% commission for clothing. On a product you sell for 500 TL, you'd pay roughly 77.50 TL in commission, leaving 422.50 TL to cover product cost, shipping, and any ad spend. Sell the same product on your own site and that 77.50 TL share drops to a payment-processing fee (typically in the 2-3% range, varying by provider); the difference goes straight to your margin. That difference should of course be weighed against the cost of generating that sale's traffic yourself (ads, SEO work); it isn't a guaranteed profit, but seeing the size of the commission in concrete terms makes the decision easier.

The risk of depending on a single platform

If all your sales come from one marketplace, you have no backup channel if the platform raises its commission, changes its algorithm, or you run into a dispute over your account. This isn't a statistic, it's a structural risk: putting a variable outside your control at the center of your revenue. Having your own website doesn't eliminate this risk entirely, but it moves part of your sales into a channel you control.

Who owns the customer data?

This is a point most sellers overlook. Under Article 10 of Türkiye's Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce, a service provider or intermediary service provider is responsible for storing the personal data it collects under this law and cannot pass it on to third parties without the individual's consent. In practice, this means you may not always have direct access to a customer's email or phone number after a marketplace sale; that data legally stays with the platform. If you want to run a promotional campaign, a loyalty program, or remarketing, this limit affects your revenue directly.

The advantages of your own website

On your own site, this limit disappears: visitor data, customer contact information, and sales history are directly yours. You build the brand experience (design, tone, product story) entirely yourself, and the SEO/GEO investment you make compounds over time into an asset independent of any platform; effort spent on a marketplace grows the platform's traffic, effort spent on your own site grows your own presence.

Over the long run, commission cost disappears too; only payment infrastructure and hosting costs remain, which are typically lower than marketplace commission.

The cost of your own website

In exchange, you have to generate the traffic yourself; there is no built-in visitor flow like a marketplace, so you need to invest in SEO, ads, or social media. Setup is also a time and budget line item; we covered these in detail in our website cost and completion timeline articles. You also need to set up (or have someone set up) payment infrastructure, shipping integration, and inventory management yourself.

The picture in Türkiye

Per the Ministry of Trade's report published on May 6, 2025, 600,800 businesses in Türkiye did e-commerce in 2024; 78.6% of them were sole proprietorships, 17.8% limited companies, and 3.6% joint-stock companies. The report doesn't break down how many of these sold through marketplaces versus their own sites, so we could not find a verifiable source for a claim like "X% of Turkish businesses prefer marketplaces."

Which product type leans which way

Broadly popular, high-demand products (electronics accessories, everyday clothing, home goods) are easy to find in marketplace search; the buyer is often already searching the platform for that exact product. For custom-made, niche-brand, or service-adjacent products (items that require an appointment, are made to order, or rely on a strong brand story), the reverse tends to be true: buyers usually arrive by searching for the brand itself, which makes your own site's visibility more valuable. Whichever group your product falls into is a reasonable starting point for which channel to prioritize.

The hybrid model: using both together

For most growing businesses, the realistic path is using the two as complements rather than substitutes: the marketplace for new-customer acquisition and demand testing, your own site for brand independence, customer data, and long-term SEO/GEO investment. All this requires is keeping price and stock consistent across both channels; inconsistent pricing erodes trust in either one.

Conclusion

A marketplace gives you ready traffic and trust, and takes a commission and your customer data in return. Your own site gives you full control and a lasting digital asset, and requires you to generate traffic yourself. The right answer is usually not choosing between the two, but using both in the right order and the right proportion.

If you'd like to evaluate building your own website or a site that supports your marketplace sales, you can look at our website development service or book a call.