Selling on Amazon vs own website: what the choice really is
Selling on Amazon vs own website comes down to renting reach versus owning a relationship. On Amazon you pay, per order, for access to buyers who are already searching. On your own website you pay once to build the shop and then earn every visitor, but each buyer becomes yours to contact, serve and sell to again.
Put that way, the two channels do different jobs. Amazon is excellent at the first sale for a product people search by category: “steel water bottle 1 litre”, “cotton bedsheet double”. Your website is better at everything after that first sale: the reorder, the refill, the gift for a friend, the new product launch sent to people who already liked the first one.
This is why the answer for most established Indian brands is “both, in stages”. The mistake is not choosing Amazon, and it is not building a website; it is treating one as a replacement for the other. A brand that sells only on a marketplace rents its whole business. A brand that leaves a marketplace too early starves itself of the sales that pay for building its own audience.
What does Amazon charge sellers in India? The fee side of selling on Amazon vs own website
Amazon.in’s fee page lists four main types of charge: a referral fee, a closing fee, a weight handling (shipping) fee, and extra fees if you use Amazon’s fulfilment service, such as pick and pack and storage. Amazon states that its listed fees exclude taxes and that GST at 18% is applied on top.
The referral fee is a percentage of the selling price, and it depends on your category. Amazon’s fee schedule shows rates from 0% to 30% across categories, with several categories carrying a 0% referral fee below a price threshold. The closing fee is a per-order charge that varies with the item’s price band and fulfilment channel. The weight handling fee depends on the item’s weight or volume and the distance it travels. Fulfilment adds per-unit handling and monthly storage by volume.
Because these lines stack, the fee percentage printed next to your category is never the whole story. Always run the full calculation on Amazon’s own fee calculator for your actual price, weight and fulfilment method, and check it again when Amazon announces fee changes, which it does from time to time. We do not quote marketplace fee figures on this page for exactly that reason: they change, and your category decides them.
How to compare selling on Amazon vs own website per order
Compare the money left after the sale, not the sale price. For each channel, take the selling price and subtract every cost that only exists because the order came through that channel. What remains is the channel margin, and it is the only fair way to compare selling on Amazon vs own website.
For a marketplace order, subtract the referral fee, closing fee, weight handling or fulfilment fees, GST on those fees (which you may be able to claim as input credit; ask your accountant), any advertising spent inside the marketplace to win that sale, and the cost of returns in your category. For an own-site order, subtract the payment gateway’s per-transaction fee, the courier charge you pay, the packaging, the cost of returns, and the marketing spend that brought the buyer.
That last line is where honest comparisons diverge. The first order on your own website often costs more to win than the marketplace fee, because you paid for ads or content to find that buyer. The second and third orders from the same buyer, reached through WhatsApp or email at almost no cost, are where the own-site margin pulls ahead. Model both first and repeat orders before deciding.
- Marketplace: price − referral − closing − shipping/fulfilment − GST on fees − in-marketplace ads − returns
- Own website: price − gateway fee − courier − packaging − returns − marketing to acquire
- Repeat own-site order: price − gateway fee − courier − packaging − returns − a small reminder cost
Why the second order decides selling on Amazon vs own website
Repeat orders are where your own website earns its keep. On a marketplace, every reorder pays the same fees as the first order. On your own site, a returning buyer arrives through a WhatsApp reminder, a saved bookmark or a search for your brand name, and there is no referral fee on the sale.
This is why product type matters so much. Consumables and refills (tea, coffee, spices, skincare, pet food, supplements where legal, cleaning products) create natural repeat cycles. Products with sizes and seasons (clothing, footwear, school supplies) bring buyers back when the season turns. One-off purchases (a mattress, a pressure cooker) repeat rarely, so the own-site advantage is smaller.
A practical rule: if a meaningful share of your customers would buy again within a year, the own-site channel is worth building now. If almost nobody buys twice, focus your own site on brand trust and search visibility, and let the marketplace carry volume. Either way, you need the buyer’s contact and consent to invite them back, and that only happens on your own store.
Selling on Amazon vs own website: who owns the customer?
On a marketplace, the platform owns the customer relationship. Buyer contact happens through the marketplace’s own messaging and order tools, and its policies limit how sellers may contact or market to buyers. On your own website, the buyer’s name, phone, email, address and order history are in your database.
This affects more than marketing. Without contact details, you cannot tell last year’s buyers about a new flavour, cannot ask why someone returned an item, cannot offer a loyalty discount, and cannot build a lookalike audience from your best customers. You also cannot take those customers with you if the marketplace relationship ends.
Owning customer data brings duties too. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 sets rules on consent, purpose and security for personal data, and WhatsApp’s Business Messaging Policy requires opt-in before a business messages people. On the build side, we add clear consent checkboxes, a privacy policy page you approve, and access controls on the admin panel. Legal sign-off on your policies is for your own lawyer.
Suspension risk in selling on Amazon vs own website
The biggest hidden risk of selling only on Amazon is that one account action can pause your whole income. Marketplaces can suppress listings, hold payments or suspend accounts for policy issues such as complaints, performance metrics, authenticity questions or documentation gaps, and the seller has to follow the platform’s process to resolve it.
Most suspensions are fixable, and many are caused by genuine mistakes the seller can correct. But “fixable” still means days or weeks without sales while you respond. A brand with its own store, its own customer list and its own WhatsApp channel keeps selling during that time. A brand with nothing but a marketplace account does not.
Your own website carries different risks: the server can go down, a payment gateway can review your account, a Google update can move rankings. The difference is that those are spread across suppliers you choose and can replace. The point of adding your own store is not to escape all risk; it is to make sure no single decision by one platform can switch the business off.
Where does traffic come from for your own website?
Traffic to your own store comes from sources you build: Google search, Google Shopping, Instagram and Facebook, WhatsApp, email, influencer mentions, packaging inserts and people typing your brand name. None of these arrive on launch day, which is the honest downside in the selling on Amazon vs own website comparison.
Search is slow but compounding. Category pages that answer what buyers type (“organic jaggery powder”, “handblock print cotton dupatta”) can rank over months and keep bringing visitors without a per-click cost. A monthly SEO plan from ₹10,000/mo helps in competitive categories; nobody can guarantee rankings. Product feeds to Google Merchant Center can put your items in free and paid Shopping listings once your store meets Google’s policy checks.
The cheapest traffic is people who already bought from you somewhere. A small insert card in every marketplace parcel with a reason to visit your site (a care guide, a recipe, a warranty registration) is one route sellers use; check your marketplace’s packaging and communication policies before adding one. Returning buyers who arrive this way convert well and cost almost nothing.
What your own website really costs to run
Your own website has no commission, but it is not free. Budget for the build, the domain, hosting or a platform plan, the payment gateway’s per-transaction fee, courier contracts, and the marketing to bring buyers.
On our side, a full store starts at ₹50,000 (US$750) and is built in 4–8 weeks, with two months of free maintenance after launch and optional upkeep from ₹8,000/mo afterwards. A catalogue-heavy brand that needs hundreds of search-ready pages can start from the SEO website plan at ₹20,000. If you choose a hosted platform such as Shopify, its monthly plan and any paid apps become recurring costs; with WooCommerce or a custom build, hosting is the main one. The comparison of ecommerce platforms in India sets these side by side.
Logistics is the line new D2C sellers most often underestimate. Marketplace fulfilment bundles storage, packing and delivery. On your own site you arrange a courier aggregator or direct courier contracts, packing materials and returns handling, or pay a third-party warehouse. Get courier rates for your parcel sizes before you set prices on the new store.
Is it worth having your own website if Amazon already works? Selling on Amazon vs own website for established sellers
Usually yes, once marketplace sales are steady and some customers buy again. A working Amazon channel proves demand; your own website then turns part of that demand into a relationship you own. The time to build it is while marketplace income can fund it, not after an account problem.
There are exceptions. If you sell a commodity where buyers compare prices within marketplace search and never think about the brand, an own store may take years to matter. If your margins are already thin and you cannot fund marketing for the store, wait. And if your team has no one to answer store enquiries and pack store orders, fix that first, because a store with slow replies damages the brand you are trying to build.
A middle path works for many: a smaller brand site first, with your story, product range, care guides and “Buy on Amazon” links, then a full checkout later. It builds brand search and trust immediately without splitting operations. A showcase site of this kind starts at ₹10,000.
Which products suit your own website first, and which suit Amazon first?
Products with a story, a repeat cycle or a community suit your own website first. Products bought on price, by specification, from a crowded category suit a marketplace first. Most brands have a mix, and can split the range accordingly.
Own-site-first examples: handmade or craft products where the maker matters, subscription-friendly consumables, products needing education (natural skincare, specialty foods, ergonomic furniture), custom or personalised items, and bundles that a marketplace listing handles poorly. Marketplace-first examples: phone accessories, generic kitchen tools, standard stationery, anything where the buyer types a model number.
You can also split by product within one brand: bestsellers everywhere, exclusive sizes, bundles or limited editions only on your site. This gives buyers a reason to visit your store without undercutting your marketplace listings. Before setting different prices or offers across channels, read your marketplace’s pricing policies so you do not trip a rule you agreed to when you signed up.
A staged plan for selling on Amazon vs own website: do both, in order
The safest route is a staged plan. Each stage uses the income and learning from the one before, and none requires you to stop selling where you already sell.
Stage one is the marketplace, where you prove demand, learn which products sell, collect reviews and stabilise supply. Stage two is a brand site with your story and product range, even without checkout, so buyers who search your name find something you control. Stage three is a full store with checkout, where you start moving repeat buyers and new buyers from Google and social. Stage four is automation: one stock count across channels, WhatsApp order and reorder flows for store customers, and invoices synced to your accounts.
How fast you move depends on repeat rate and cash. A skincare brand with frequent reorders might go from stage one to stage three within a year. A furniture brand with rare repeat purchases might sit at stage two for longer and invest in search content instead. The order management system guide explains stage four in detail.
- Stage 1: marketplace listings, reviews, stable supply
- Stage 2: brand site with story and range, from ₹10,000
- Stage 3: own store with checkout, from ₹50,000
- Stage 4: synced stock, WhatsApp flows, accounting link
Pricing when selling on Amazon vs own website without undercutting yourself
Keep headline prices consistent across channels and compete on value instead: bundles, free samples, loyalty offers and exclusive variants on your own site. Large price gaps confuse buyers and can conflict with marketplace pricing rules.
Your own site has lower per-order fees, so it can absorb offers that would lose money on a marketplace. Examples: a free sample with every second order, a refill pack sold only to past buyers, a three-product bundle at a small saving, a gift-wrap option, or first access to new launches for WhatsApp subscribers. Each of these rewards the buyer for choosing your store without making your marketplace price look inflated.
Think about delivery as part of price. Marketplace buyers are used to fast, often free delivery on eligible items. On your own site, a clear free-delivery threshold, honest delivery estimates by pincode and a cash-on-delivery policy with sensible limits matter as much as the product price.
Running stock and orders across Amazon and your own website
Once you sell on two or more channels, keep one stock count and pull every order into one place. Overselling the last unit on two channels at once causes cancellations, and marketplaces track cancellations closely.
Small sellers can manage with a shared spreadsheet and a daily routine for the first months. As orders grow, an order management layer pulls marketplace orders through their seller APIs, combines them with store orders, adjusts stock everywhere when anything sells, and prints labels in one batch. Your warehouse team then packs from one list instead of four dashboards.
Accounting needs the same discipline. Marketplace settlements arrive net of fees, while store payments arrive through your gateway, and both must match GST invoices. Syncing orders and invoices into TallyPrime or your accounting software keeps your accountant’s month-end sane. The Tally and Shopify integration page shows how that link works for a Shopify store; custom stores can do the same.
Rules your own online store must follow in India when selling on Amazon vs own website
Your own store is an e-commerce business in its own right, with duties that a marketplace partly handled for you. The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 require e-commerce entities to show details such as their legal name, address and customer-care contact, appoint a grievance officer, acknowledge consumer complaints within 48 hours and resolve them within one month.
In practice, that means pages and processes: a contact page with your legal business name and address, a named grievance officer with contact details, clear return, refund, cancellation and shipping policies, the total price including taxes and delivery charges shown before payment, and country of origin where required. If you are GST-registered, invoices should carry your GSTIN and the correct tax, and if your turnover crosses the e-invoicing threshold your accountant will advise how invoices must be reported.
We build the store so these pieces are in place: policy pages you approve, a grievance contact block, price breakdown at checkout, GST-ready invoices, and consent capture for marketing messages. We do not give legal or tax advice; ask your lawyer and accountant to review the final wording.
Worked example: a Jaipur block-print brand deciding its channels
This scenario is hypothetical, meant to show the reasoning, not a real client. Say a block-print textile brand in Jaipur sells bedsheets, dohars and table linen on Amazon, and sales are steady. The owner notices that the same buyers return every festive season, but she cannot reach them before it starts.
Running the per-order comparison with her real fees, she sees that marketplace fees and returns take a noticeable share of each sale, and that her in-marketplace ads cost is rising. On her own site, first orders would cost more to win through Instagram ads, but repeat festive orders reached through WhatsApp would carry only the gateway fee and courier.
A sensible plan would be to keep Amazon for discovery, build a store starting at ₹50,000 with collections by room and occasion, care guides and gift bundles, and add a parcel insert inviting marketplace buyers to register for festive previews, if her marketplace’s rules allow it. Stock would sync across both channels from launch, because her best designs sell out. In year two, with repeat buyers on her own list, she could shift festive launches to the store first. The build would take around six to eight weeks.
Checklist before adding your own store to marketplace selling
Work through this list before you commission a store. It makes quotes comparable and exposes gaps, such as courier rates or return rules, that decide whether selling on Amazon vs own website works in your favour.
- Per-order margin on your top five products, by channel, including returns
- Repeat-purchase rate: how many buyers ordered twice in the last year
- Courier rates for your parcel sizes and a returns process
- Product data: titles, descriptions, photos, variants and stock in a spreadsheet
- Your story, founder notes and care guides a marketplace listing cannot hold
- Policies: returns, refunds, shipping, privacy, grievance contact
- GST details and who will reconcile store payments with invoices
- A plan for the first 90 days of store traffic: content, social, WhatsApp, inserts
Send that to us on WhatsApp and you will get an itemised quote in about two working days; nothing is billed before your written approval. The pricing page shows where each plan starts.