What does a marketplace really take from each order?

A marketplace looks like free demand. Amazon or Blinkit puts your product in front of a buyer who already wants it, and you did not run a single ad to get them there. Then the settlement lands, and the number you keep is a lot smaller than the sticker price.

Start with the commission, because that is the part everyone quotes. Amazon's referral fee is usually around 15 percent of the sale. On Blinkit the commission runs about 10 to 22 percent by category. Livable on its own. But the commission is the first fee, not the only one.

Now add what sits underneath. On Amazon there is a fulfilment fee per unit, storage, and increasingly ad spend just to be found, and by common seller breakdowns the total load runs 30 to 45 percent of the selling price. On Blinkit the fulfilment fee, dark store storage and required ads push the total, by one D2C breakdown, to 35 to 50 percent of the price for a small brand. On an 800 rupee product that can be close to 600 rupees gone before you have paid for the product itself.

This is not an argument against marketplaces. They are fast, real channels, and for the right product they move volume you could not move alone. The point is to know the true take before you lean on it, because a channel that keeps 40 percent of your price is a very different business than one that keeps 5.

So run the same order two ways. On the marketplace you win easy demand, keep less than half the price, and never learn who the customer was. On your own site you have to earn the visit, but you keep almost all of the money, and you keep the customer, their contact and the next order. The smart move is rarely all of one. It is to use the marketplace for reach, and to make your own store good enough that the repeat purchase happens where you keep both the money and the relationship.