Stop Paying 15% to Sell to Customers Who Already Know You

You made the product. You found the customer, or they found you at a market, through a friend, or on your Instagram. Then they bought it on a marketplace, and the marketplace took a slice of the sale for the privilege.

That slice is fine when a marketplace brings you a stranger you never would have reached. It's a lot harder to justify when it's your own regular, buying for the fifth time.

What a $40 sale really costs you

Here's what the two biggest marketplaces keep from a single $40 order, using their own published fee pages. We've left out card processing for a fair comparison, because you pay that almost everywhere.

On Amazon, most categories carry a 15% referral fee, and clothing over $20 is 17%. A Professional seller account adds $39.99 a month on top. Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee plus a $0.20 listing fee, and then adds its own payment processing fee as well.

On your own store, there's no commission at all. You pay normal card processing, which is 2.9% plus 30 cents at Stripe's standard US rate. On a $40 order that's $1.46.

Now do the math for a whole month

Say you sell 100 orders a month at $40 each. Here's the rough difference, using the published rates:

• On Amazon (15% category): $600 in referral fees plus the $39.99 Professional plan. About $640 a month.
• On your own store: about $146 in card processing plus a store plan that costs around ten dollars. About $156 a month.

That's a difference of nearly $500 a month, or close to $6,000 a year, on the same sales. For a small shop, that's a new piece of equipment, a part-time helper, or simply your own paycheck.

The hidden cost isn't the fee. It's the customer.

Fees are the part you can see. The bigger cost is quieter: on a marketplace, the customer belongs to the marketplace.

• You often can't email them later about a new product, a restock or a holiday sale.
• Your listing sits next to your competitors, sometimes with a cheaper look-alike right underneath it.
• The rules can change any time. Fees go up, policies shift, and listings get suppressed, and there's nobody to call.
• Your brand disappears. Ask a marketplace shopper where they bought something and they'll name the marketplace, not your shop.

Your own store flips all of that. The customer lands on your page, sees only your products, and the order (with their email) comes straight to you.

Don't quit the marketplace. Use it differently.

This isn't a call to delete your Etsy or Amazon shop tomorrow. Marketplaces are genuinely good at one thing: putting you in front of shoppers who have never heard of you. The smart move is to use both.

1. Let the marketplace find new customers. Keep your best sellers listed there.
2. Send everyone you already know to your own store. Your Instagram bio, your Facebook page, your business cards, your market booth sign and your email signature should all point to your own shop.
3. Give a reason to come direct. A small thank-you, free local pickup, or first access to new items works well. Check your marketplace's rules about what you can include in packages.
4. Collect emails on your own store, so the next sale doesn't need any platform at all.

What your own store actually needs

It doesn't need to be complicated. A good small store has:

• Clear photos and a simple price on every product
• A cart that works on a phone
• The ways your customers already like to pay: card, PayPal, and for local shops, things like Venmo, Cash App or paying at pickup
• Simple shipping rules, like one flat price and free shipping over a set amount
• Your story, so customers know there's a real person behind it

Your job for this week

Look at last month's marketplace payout and add up the fees. Then count how many of those orders came from people who already knew you. That number is the case for your own store, in your own handwriting.