Should I sell on a marketplace or my own store?

Updated

What you are really trading

A marketplace rents you its traffic, and the rent is a larger cut, less control and no direct line to the buyer afterwards. Your own store costs less per sale and gives you the customer, but every single buyer has to be found by you. That is the whole trade.

If you have any audience at all, you are usually renting traffic you already had.

Choose the marketplace when

You have no audience, your product fits a category shoppers already browse, and you can live with the rules.

It is the fastest route to a first sale from a stranger.

Choose your own store when

You have any audience at all — a newsletter, a community, a following. Then you are paying marketplace rent for traffic you already had.

Also choose it when your product does not fit a browsing category, which is most business products.

Using both properly

Marketplace for discovery, your own store for everything after. Include something in the download that invites the buyer to your list.

That way the marketplace is a source of customers, not the owner of them.

FAQ

Questions, answered straight.

What is the downside of selling on a marketplace?
Stacked fees, near-identical competitors, rules that change without warning, and no way to reach your buyers once the sale is done.
Which makes more money in the end?
Your own store per sale, a marketplace per hour of effort. Sellers who last use the marketplace to find people and their own store to keep them.
Can I put my email address in a marketplace download?
Usually yes, though some marketplaces restrict direct solicitation. Read the rules and stay inside them.
Does listing in both hurt my ranking?
No, unless the marketplace requires exclusivity. A few do — check.
Which should a beginner start with?
Your own store if you have any audience. A marketplace if you genuinely have none.

Sell it inside your Whop.

MKKT adds a store to your community. Upload the file, set a price, share one link.