Amazon vs Your Own Store — The Real Numbers Nobody Talks About
- Amazon takes 30–45% of every sale through fees (referral, FBA, storage, returns, advertising) once you account for all costs — not the 15% referral fee the platform advertises.
- Your own WooCommerce or Shopify store costs roughly 5–12% of revenue (payment processing, hosting, marketing) at steady state — but requires significant upfront investment in traffic acquisition.
- The real choice is not Amazon vs your store — it is when you are big enough that Amazon’s customer acquisition advantage is outweighed by their margin extraction.
- Most brands that succeed long-term run both: Amazon for discovery and volume, own store for margin, customer data, and relationships.
The “Amazon vs your own store” debate gets framed as a binary choice. It is not. But it does require honest maths — and most of the honest maths points in the same direction: Amazon’s fees are significantly higher than they appear, and the cost is not just financial.
The Real Amazon Fee Stack
Sale price: £50.00 Amazon referral fee (15%): -£7.50 FBA fulfilment fee: -£4.50 FBA storage (monthly average): -£0.60 Returns (avg 10% rate, 50% loss): -£2.50 Sponsored Products (to stay visible): -£5.00 ───────────────────────────────────────── Net to seller: £29.90 Effective fee rate: 40.2% Your own store equivalent: Payment processing (Stripe, 1.4%+20p): -£0.90 Hosting + platform (monthly / orders): -£0.40 Fulfilment (own or 3PL): -£4.00 Steady-state marketing (10% of rev): -£5.00 ───────────────────────────────────────── Net to seller: £39.70 Effective cost rate: 20.6%
What Amazon Gives You That Your Store Cannot
The fee calculation above does not capture Amazon’s real value: immediate access to 300+ million active shoppers with purchase intent and a stored payment method. Getting to £50k/month on your own store from zero requires 12–24 months of SEO, paid social, email building, and brand development. Amazon lets you skip most of that — you pay for it in fees, but the alternative is time.
Run Amazon to introduce your product to new customers. Include a registration card or QR code in the package directing them to register on your website for warranty, exclusive content, or a discount on their next order. Convert 10–15% of Amazon buyers to direct customers. Over time, your direct channel grows and your Amazon dependency shrinks. The unit economics improve every quarter.
References
- Amazon Seller Fee ScheduleAmazon UK — current referral fees, FBA fees, and storage rates.
- Stripe PricingStripe — payment processing fees for comparison against Amazon referral fees.
- Shopify — Amazon vs Your Own StoreShopify Blog — analysis of Amazon vs own store economics from the perspective of a store platform.
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