Your Own E-Commerce Website vs Etsy/Amazon: Which is Right For Your Business?

You have got products to sell. The question is: where should you sell them? Do you set up shop on established marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon, or invest in your own e-commerce website? It is one of the most important decisions a product-based business can make, and the answer is not as straightforward as you might think.

In this comprehensive comparison, we analyse both options across the factors that matter most: fees, branding, customer data, SEO, and long-term scalability. By the end, you will know exactly which approach is right for your business.

Quick Comparison at a Glance

1. Fees and Costs: The Numbers That Matter

This is where the difference becomes most stark, especially as your sales volume grows.

Etsy Fees (2026)

• Listing fee: £0.16 per item (renewed every 4 months)
• Transaction fee: 6.5% of the sale price (including postage)
• Payment processing: 4% + £0.20 per transaction
• Offsite ads fee: 12-15% on sales from Etsy ads (mandatory for sellers with £8,500+ in annual sales)
• Total per sale: Roughly 10-15% of your sale price

Amazon Fees (2026)

• Professional seller subscription: £25/month
• Referral fee: 7-15% depending on category
• FBA fees: £2.50-£5+ per item for fulfilment (optional but recommended)
• Storage fees: Variable based on volume and season
• Total per sale: Roughly 15-30% of your sale price

Your Own Website

• Setup: One-off investment (£1,999+ with eSpawn)
• Hosting: £20-£100/month
• Payment processing: 1.4% + £0.20 per transaction (Stripe UK)
• Total per sale: Roughly 1.5-2% of your sale price

Let us do the maths. If you sell a product for £50 and make 100 sales per month (£5,000 revenue):

• Etsy fees: £500-£750/month (10-15%)
• Amazon fees: £750-£1,500/month (15-30%)
• Own website fees: £95-£170/month (hosting + payment processing)

Over a year, the difference between selling on Etsy and your own website could be £4,000-£7,000 in saved fees. That alone can pay for the initial website investment and then some.

2. Branding and Customer Experience

On a marketplace, your products are displayed within someone else's brand. On Etsy, your shop sits alongside millions of competitors. On Amazon, your product listing looks almost identical to every other listing.

With your own website, you control:

• Visual identity: Colours, fonts, layout, photography style — everything reflects your brand
• Customer journey: Design the exact path from landing page to checkout
• Storytelling: Dedicate pages to your brand story, process, and values
• Packaging the experience: Custom confirmation emails, thank-you pages, and follow-up sequences
• No competitor ads: On Amazon, your product page literally shows "Customers also bought" from your competitors

Brand building is a long-term investment. When customers remember your brand rather than "that thing I bought on Amazon," they come back directly — without you paying marketplace fees on repeat purchases.

3. Customer Data: Your Most Valuable Asset

This might be the most underappreciated difference between the two approaches.

When you sell on Etsy or Amazon, the platform owns the customer relationship. You get limited information — maybe a name and shipping address. You cannot:

• Build an email marketing list
• Retarget visitors with ads
• Analyse detailed browsing behaviour
• Create lookalike audiences for advertising
• Send abandoned cart emails

With your own website, every piece of customer data belongs to you:

• Email addresses for newsletters, promotions, and product launches
• Purchase history for personalised recommendations
• Browsing data to understand what products generate interest
• Traffic sources to know which marketing channels are working
• Customer lifetime value calculations for smarter acquisition spending

Email marketing alone generates an average return of £36 for every £1 spent. If you are selling on marketplaces, you are leaving that entire channel on the table.

4. SEO: The Gift That Keeps Giving

Search engine optimisation is where your own website truly shines as a long-term investment.

On marketplaces, your SEO is limited to the platform's internal search. You might rank well within Etsy's search results, but those are Etsy's rankings, not yours. If Etsy changes their algorithm (which they regularly do), your visibility can plummet overnight.

Your own website gives you:

• Google rankings: Appear in search results when people search for your products
• Content marketing: Blog posts that attract organic traffic for years
• Product page optimisation: Full control over titles, descriptions, URLs, and schema markup
• Backlink building: Other websites can link to your products, boosting domain authority
• Local SEO: Appear in "near me" searches if you have a physical location

A well-optimised product page on your own website can rank in Google for years, driving free, high-intent traffic that costs nothing beyond the initial SEO investment.

5. Scalability: Planning for Growth

Marketplaces work well at small scale. But as your business grows, the limitations become more painful:

• Fee burden increases: Etsy's 6.5% transaction fee on £100,000 revenue is £6,500 per year — money that could fund product development or marketing
• Policy changes: Marketplaces can change terms, fees, or algorithms at any time. In 2022, Etsy increased transaction fees by 30% with minimal notice
• Category restrictions: Some products are banned or restricted on marketplaces with little explanation
• Account suspension risk: One policy violation or false complaint can shut down your entire shop
• International expansion: Your own website lets you easily add multi-currency, multi-language support

Your own website scales with you. Whether you are doing £1,000 or £1,000,000 in revenue, your transaction fees remain at around 1.5%. As your business grows, the economics get better, not worse.

6. The Hybrid Strategy: Best of Both Worlds

Here is the approach we recommend for most product businesses:

1. Start on marketplaces to validate your products and generate initial sales
2. Build your own website once you have proof of demand and some revenue
3. Use marketplaces as acquisition channels — include inserts in orders directing customers to your website for future purchases
4. Gradually shift volume to your own site where margins are higher
5. Keep marketplace presence for discovery while making your website the primary sales channel

This approach lets you benefit from marketplace traffic while building a brand and customer base you actually own. Over time, your own website should become the majority of your revenue at significantly higher margins.

The Verdict

If you are just starting out and need to validate a product idea with minimal investment, marketplaces are a sensible starting point. The built-in traffic and low barrier to entry let you test and learn quickly.

But if you are serious about building a sustainable business, your own e-commerce website is essential. The lower fees, brand ownership, customer data, and SEO benefits compound over time, creating a business that is more profitable, more resilient, and more valuable.

The question is not "marketplace or own website." The question is: when will you invest in an asset you actually own?

"Selling only on marketplaces is like paying rent forever when you could be building equity. Your own website is the business equivalent of owning your home."