If most of your business happens on Amazon, eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, or Etsy, you have probably heard two kinds of advice. One says the marketplace is all you need. The other says burn it down and build a website. Both are wrong.
The marketplace is real demand you should keep
Those platforms bring buyers you could not reach on your own. That reach is worth the fees when the math works. Walking away from a working channel to make a point about ownership is bad business.
What you do not own there
You do not own the customer relationship, the data, the account, or the rules. Fee schedules change by category and program. A policy update or an account review can pause your income overnight, and the buyer list you spent years serving stays with the platform.
That is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to build leverage.
The owned home base next to the channel
An owned home base is a site and database in accounts you control that does the jobs the marketplace will never do for you:
- One operating view of products, orders, fees, and reporting across every channel, within what each platform permits.
- A direct line to the customers you are allowed to bring closer: your brand, your story, your email list, your repeat buyers.
- Follow-up that belongs to the business: inquiries, quotes, wholesale requests, and conversations recorded in one place.
The marketplaces keep doing what they are good at. The home base holds what has to be yours.
Audit the real numbers first
Do not trust a blended fee percentage from a blog post, including this one. Pull your actual statements. Category fees, fulfillment, storage, advertising, and payment processing all land differently for every seller. The honest move is to audit the statements, then decide where an owned home base creates leverage and where the channel should keep running exactly as it is.
See what the platform takes off your year
This is the audit from the last section, running. Put your real monthly numbers in and see the platform's cut for the year, the five-year total, and the piece repeat customers could bring direct.
Start from your industry
Editable starting examples for your industry. They change the starting numbers, not the math, and they are not industry statistics.
Your numbers
What that means
Use the platform to meet people. Then get them onto your list, your booking link and your text messages, and let the platform keep bringing you new ones.
Check the platform's terms before you solicit customers off it. The goal is not to break their rules. It is to own the relationship you built.
What this assumed
- Repeat customers are counted as revenue you could have kept, which assumes you have a way to reach them directly.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
This is an estimate
This tool returns an estimate based on the numbers you entered. Your real result depends on your own costs, rates and conditions. Check it against your own records before you make a decision with it.
How to run it, step by step
- 1Enter your monthly revenue through the platform. One platform at a time. Run it once per channel if you sell on several. Use a normal month, not December.
- 2Put in their real cut. Category fees, payment processing, and program fees together. Your seller statement has it. Do not use the headline rate from their pricing page.
- 3Add listing, ad, and subscription fees. The fixed monthly costs you pay to be there at all: store subscriptions, promoted listings you run every month, listing fees.
- 4Estimate your repeat share honestly. What portion of orders come from people who bought from you before? That is the share where the platform is charging you full freight to reach your own customers.
How to read what it gives you
- The five-year total is the one to sit with. A fee that feels fine per order looks different as a truck-sized number.
- The cut on repeat customers is your leverage. New buyers are worth the fee. People who already know you are the ones a home base can serve direct, where the platform rules allow it.
- If the repeat number is small, your channel is doing exactly what a channel should. Keep it and revisit in a year.
The tool is free, it does not expire, and you can put it on your own website if you want it there. Nothing on this page is locked.
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Questions people actually ask
Should I stop selling on Amazon or eBay?
No. A working channel with real demand is worth the fees when the math works. The move is not leaving. It is building an owned home base next to the channel so the customer relationships, the data, and the follow-up belong to your business.
Can I contact my marketplace buyers directly?
Only within each platform's rules, and the rules differ. What you can always do is build direct relationships on your own property: your site, your email list built with permission, your packaging, your brand. Read the current policy for your platform before you act, because violations can cost the account.
What are typical marketplace fees?
They vary by platform, category, and program, and they change. That is exactly why this article will not quote you a blended percentage. Pull your own seller statements. Your effective rate, including ads and subscriptions, is knowable in an evening and it is the only rate that matters.
What should a seller's home base actually include?
One operating view of products, orders, and fees across channels, a direct storefront or catalog, an owned customer list with consent, and follow-up that the business controls. Not a clone of the marketplace. The jobs the marketplace will never do for you.