For most consumer brands, “should we be on Amazon?” is the wrong question. Your customers are already there, searching for your category. The better question is what role Amazon should play next to your own store, and how to stop the two from cannibalising each other.
What a marketplace gives you — and what it costs
A marketplace brings traffic, trust and logistics from the first day. It is the fastest way to test whether a product has demand. In exchange, you pay. Amazon’s annual report for 2025 shows $172.2 billion in revenue from third-party seller services — the commissions and related fulfillment and shipping fees sellers pay — up from $156.1 billion in 2024. On top of that came $68.6 billion in advertising revenue, much of it from brands buying visibility inside the store.
None of this makes Amazon a bad channel. It means the margin you see in the listing is not your margin. Fees, advertising, returns and storage need to be in the calculation per product, not per account.
What your own store gives you
Your own store is where you own the customer relationship. You see who bought, you can email and message them, you control the presentation and the price, and every repeat order costs you nothing in commission. The catch is that nobody arrives by default: you need advertising, search, content and social to bring people in. Shopify makes the technical side straightforward; the traffic is the real work.
Give each channel a job
- Starting out: use the marketplace to test demand and pricing, and launch a lean own store as the home of the brand.
- Growing: shift repeat customers to your own channel with email, SMS and loyalty, while the marketplace keeps capturing new demand.
- Scaling: automate inventory and orders across channels and treat the marketplace as customer acquisition, your store as customer relationship.
Stop the channels competing
Price parity. If your own store is more expensive than your Amazon listing, customers who find you through your ads will buy on Amazon — and you pay twice. Keep prices aligned, and give your own store reasons to exist: bundles, exclusive colours, gift wrapping, a loyalty program.
One inventory. Separate stock pools updated by hand lead to overselling, cancelled orders and damaged seller ratings. A shared inventory with automatic sync, which we set up in integrations & automation, becomes essential as soon as volume grows.
Brand consistency. Same product names, same images, same claims. A customer who sees two different versions of your brand trusts neither.
Make marketplace customers remember you
A customer who buys your product on a marketplace still holds your product in their hands. Packaging, an insert with care instructions and a product that delivers on its promise make them search for your name next time. Check the marketplace’s rules first: marketplaces typically restrict inserts and messages that steer buyers to other channels. How we manage listings, pricing and ratings is described in marketplace management.
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