What is the difference between DTC and marketplace selling?

DTC – direct to consumer – means selling your products directly to customers through your own website or physical presence, without an intermediary. Marketplace selling means listing your products on a third-party platform – Amazon, Etsy, Not On The High Street, and similar – where customers are already browsing and purchasing.

Both have significant advantages and meaningful trade-offs, and the right approach for your business depends on your margins, your capacity, your audience, and your growth stage.

DTC gives you full control over the customer experience, the brand presentation, the data, and the margin. When someone buys from your website, you own that relationship – you know who they are, you can market to them again, and you capture the full retail price minus your own costs. The challenge is that you are responsible for driving all of the traffic yourself, which requires consistent investment in SEO, social media, email marketing, and potentially paid advertising.

Marketplace selling gives you access to an existing audience of active buyers without having to build that audience yourself. Amazon in particular has a customer base with high purchase intent and a trusted payment and fulfilment infrastructure. The trade-offs are lower margins due to platform fees, limited brand control, and no direct ownership of the customer relationship – you know what sold but not necessarily who bought it.

For most product businesses, the strongest position is a combination of both – a DTC presence that builds brand loyalty and captures full margin from your most engaged customers, and a marketplace presence that drives volume and reaches buyers who would not otherwise find you. The balance between them depends on your specific situation and should be a strategic decision rather than an accident of which channel you happened to set up first.