Which route first? Four situations
These are our own readings, and each one is a starting point. Start where the situation fits, then check the sums in the example further down.
Say a brand has no audience and a small budget for ads. A marketplace listing for its one or two strongest products is a fair first step, because buyers are already there and the brand can learn what sells. Build a simple own site at the same time for the people you reach yourself: friends, local shops, creators.
Say a brand is already known. It has a shop, a dealer network or a following. Start with your own site, since these buyers will come to you. Add a marketplace later for people who search for your kind of product there.
Say a brand sells a product that needs explaining, or one that is bought as a gift or reordered. Your own site gives room for the story, the bundle and the reorder message. Our guide on repeat purchase and retention for D2C brands covers the second order.
Say a brand sells something people compare on price alone, with a thin margin. Check the margin sums before you choose either route. A marketplace can bring volume, and its fees and ads can use up a thin margin. A site has no built-in buyers, so every one costs ad money.
Fees and cash: what is taken, and when you are paid
We give no fee figure for any platform. Fees depend on category, price and set-up, and they change. Read each platform's fee page and keep one row in your sheet per route.
According to Amazon India, read October 2026 (no date on the page), you register on Seller Central. You need a GST or PAN number and an active bank account. The page lists three ways to store and deliver. With Fulfillment by Amazon, Amazon takes care of storage, packing and delivery. With Easy Ship, you store the products and Amazon delivers. With Self Ship, you handle both. You become eligible for payment 7 days after the order is delivered, and sales minus seller fees are deposited every 7 days. The page names no fee amount. It links a fee schedule and says a change in what it calls the referral fee applies to select categories, with no year given.
On your own site, the money arrives through a payment gateway. According to Razorpay, a payment gateway, read October 2026 (no date on the page), the standard settlement cycle for domestic payments is T+2 working days. T is the day the payment is captured. The page says the cycle can vary by business type and risk factors, and that fees are deducted before the money reaches your bank. It states no rate. Other gateways have their own terms.
Our reading: both routes pay within days of a sale or a delivery, so the difference is smaller than people expect. The larger gap is in what you spend to get the sale. On a marketplace you pay fees and ads to reach buyers who are already there. On your own site you pay ads or effort to bring buyers in. Plan stock money around the date cash arrives.
Customer data: what you can and cannot do with it
Your own website
People who order from your site give you their details, so the list is yours to build. Permission still matters. According to the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, last updated September 2026, a business may message people only after it has opt-in permission. That means the person confirmed they wish to receive later messages. The business must respect requests to block, stop or opt out. The page says the business alone decides the opt-in method. We opened no official text of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act for this page, so we state no section of it. Our guides on lead generation in India and retention for D2C brands show how to record permission and write to buyers. Ask a lawyer about your own case.
A marketplace
Each marketplace sets its own rules, and we could open only one official page on the subject. According to the Acceptable Use Policy on Amazon Seller Central, read October 2026 (no date on the page), the policy covers developers and service providers. They use the Amazon Services API (application programming interface, a way for software to talk to Amazon) on behalf of a seller. Its rule 4.1 says not to use personal information about customers for any purpose other than merchant-fulfilled shipping or to meet legal requirements, including tax and regulatory ones. Its rule 4.2 says not to target Amazon customers for product marketing using data retrieved through the Amazon Services API.
Our reading: this page is written for apps and agencies that work on a seller's account. It does not list everything a seller may do. It does show how a platform treats buyer details that pass through its tools: they are for getting the order delivered. So do not plan your marketing on the assumption that a marketplace buyer's details are yours. Read the platform's own pages. If an agency or tool is connected to your seller account, ask how it handles buyer details and whether it follows these rules.
We could not read Flipkart's seller page as text, so we state nothing about its rules.
One price on every route
The common worry is that the marketplace price and your own site price fight each other. A buyer finds the product on both, sees two prices and trusts neither. Or you cut the site price to pull buyers over, and the marketplace listing looks expensive. We tried Amazon's fair pricing policy page at two addresses on Seller Central, and neither returned any policy text. So we state nothing about what Amazon or any marketplace does when your prices differ. Read the policy inside your own seller account.
What we can give you is our own method: a price rule that you write once and keep.
- Set a floor price for each product: the price below which one order on your weakest route leaves you nothing. Never go below it.
- Choose one list price for the same pack and show it everywhere.
- Give each route an extra instead of a lower price. On your own site, that can be a bundle, a small gift or early access. On a marketplace, it can be a pack size or a bundle sold only there.
- Name one person who may change a price. Keep a short calendar of planned offers.
- Every week, take a screenshot of each listing next to your site. If a price must come down, bring it down on every route on the same day, or run the offer as an extra.
Check each platform's listing and bundle rules before you use the last two ideas. These are our own suggestions. They are not a platform's rule.
A worked example: one jar of pickle, two orders
Made-up example. Say a pickle brand sells a 300 g jar at ₹399 on a marketplace and on its own website, under one price rule. Every figure below is made up. Real fees depend on the platform and the category, and ours are not any platform's fees.
| Line, per order | Marketplace order | Own-site order | Own-site repeat order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price paid by the buyer | ₹399 | ₹399 | ₹399 |
| Product cost | ₹120 | ₹120 | ₹120 |
| Packing | ₹15 | ₹15 | ₹15 |
| Platform fees or payment charges | ₹80 | ₹10 | ₹10 |
| Delivery and handling | ₹60 | ₹60 | ₹60 |
| Set aside for returns and damage | ₹15 | ₹10 | ₹10 |
| Ads or messages to win the order | ₹40 | ₹120 | ₹3 |
| Left after all of these | ₹69 | ₹64 | ₹181 |
Add up the marketplace column: 120 + 15 + 80 + 60 + 15 + 40 = 330, and 399 minus 330 leaves 69. The own-site column: 120 + 15 + 10 + 60 + 10 + 120 = 335, and 399 minus 335 leaves 64. The repeat column: 120 + 15 + 10 + 60 + 10 + 3 = 218, and 399 minus 218 leaves 181.
Read it in three steps. First, the two first orders are close, about 17% of the price on the marketplace and 16% on the site. Neither route wins on the first jar. Second, the brand paid for the site order with ads, and for the marketplace order with fees and a smaller ad. Third, the repeat order on the site is the big difference, about 45% of the price. The buyer agreed to hear from the brand, and a short message costs little.
Our reading: a marketplace buyer may return to the same listing next time, or may pick a rival that sits next to it. If your own list of buyers is still small, the marketplace row is the one that fills your first month. If many buyers order twice, the site row decides your year. Put your own numbers in this table before you choose. Our guides on customer acquisition cost and ROAS (return on ad spend) show how to find the ad cost per order.
A 90-day mixed plan
Most brands should run both within a quarter. This plan opens the second route only after the first one has a margin row. The days are our suggestion.
Days 1 to 30: one route, one margin row
Pick your first route from the four situations. Fill the margin table above with your own numbers for that route. Write the one price rule. Open with one or two products, and note the source of every order. If you take cash on delivery, read our guide on how to reduce RTO, because refused parcels change the sums.
Days 31 to 60: open the second route with your main products
List the same one or two products on the other route at the same list price. Run ads on only one route at a time, so you can read the result. Ask each buyer for a review or a short reason for buying. On your own site, ask for permission to write to them again.
Days 61 to 90: read both rows and decide
Fill the table again from real orders. For each route, choose to scale, hold or stop. Check your weekly price screenshots. Check when cash reached the bank against when you paid for stock. Then write the next 90 days. The week by week version for your own site is in our D2C marketing strategy guide.
Mistakes we see, and the fix
- Listing every product on a marketplace in week one. Fix: start with the one or two that have a margin row above zero.
- Cutting the site price to match a marketplace sale. Fix: use the price rule, and add an extra on the site.
- Running ads on a marketplace with no row for fees and returns. Fix: fill the table before you spend.
- Treating a marketplace buyer's details as a mailing list. Fix: read the platform's own page and ask your agency how it handles them.
- Opening your own site and waiting for buyers. Fix: plan where the first 100 visitors come from before you launch.
