Should You Sell Through a Marketplace or Your Own Store? It Depends Where You're Selling
Part 1 looked at why the West still leans website and Southeast Asia leans app. Part 2 is the second half of that decision: once someone's on your store, where does the actual sale happen — on a marketplace like Amazon or Shopee, or on your own brand.com? That answer is just as regional, and it changes what "building your store" should even mean.
Why the US, UK, EU, and Australia can build on brand.com
Amazon is still the center of gravity in the US, taking roughly 40.5% of all US retail ecommerce — around $490 billion in sales.
Data and statistics based on independent research via novadata.io.
But that's not the whole picture. Shopify alone now powers around 14% of US ecommerce checkout volume, and direct-to-consumer sales — through brand-owned websites — account for close to 19.2% of US retail ecommerce overall. Put simply: Amazon and Shopify-powered brand.com stores together now handle more than half of the market between them.
Data and statistics based on independent research via ringly.io.
Europe follows a similar shape. Amazon remains dominant across most EU markets, and third-party marketplaces are projected to capture around 50% of online consumer electronics sales by 2025, up from 40% the year before. At the same time, European ecommerce overall is forecast to grow 15% in 2026, with a large share of that growth coming from brands investing in their own direct channels rather than marketplace listings.
Data and statistics based on independent research via easproject.com.
The reason brand.com works as a real channel in these markets comes down to trust infrastructure that already exists independently of any platform: credit card chargeback protection, PayPal and buy-now-pay-later guarantees, and decades of consumers entering card details on unfamiliar websites without a second thought. A store doesn't need to borrow a marketplace's reputation to be trusted — the payment rails do that job.
Why Southeast Asia still runs through the marketplace
Southeast Asia's ecommerce isn't just marketplace-led, it's marketplace-concentrated. Shopee, TikTok Shop (including Tokopedia), and Lazada together accounted for 98.8% of all platform GMV in the region in 2025, up from 84% just a year earlier, on a total market of $157.6 billion.
Data and statistics based on independent research via momentum.asia.
That concentration isn't just habit, it's built on trust mechanics a standalone brand.com can't easily replicate. Shopee's escrow-based buyer guarantee holds payment until the order is confirmed delivered — a structural protection that solved the fraud anxiety that kept early Southeast Asian shoppers away from unfamiliar sellers in the first place. Cash-on-delivery served the same purpose for years and is only now fading as digital payments cross 70% of regional ecommerce transaction value.
Data and statistics based on independent research via digitalinasia.com.
This isn't unique to Southeast Asia, either — it's a sharper version of a pattern showing up globally. Across nine countries including the US, UK, Germany and France, a recent multi-market survey found consumers rate marketplaces as more trustworthy than buying direct from a brand, and 63% said they'd rather purchase through a marketplace than a brand-owned website when given the choice.
Data and statistics based on independent research via channelengine.com.
Southeast Asia just has less brand.com trust built up to offset that pull. A new store with no track record, asking a first-time buyer in Jakarta or Ho Chi Minh City to pay upfront on an unfamiliar site, is fighting the exact anxiety Shopee's escrow model was built to remove.
What this means for how your store gets built
This is the second half of Ganbo's build-by-market logic. If you're targeting the US, UK, EU, or Australia, your own branded storefront is a genuinely competitive channel — the payment trust already exists, and owning the customer relationship (and the margin) is worth the investment from day one. If you're targeting Southeast Asia, your storefront's job changes: it's not where most first-time buyers will trust you enough to purchase yet. Marketplace presence earns that first sale; your own store — website or app — is where repeat customers come once they already trust you.
Either way, we build the store to match where the trust actually lives, not where we'd prefer it to.
See what a Ganbo build includes or start your application and tell us where you're selling — we'll build the storefront that matches how that market actually buys.