Online Store vs Marketplace: Where to Sell in Spain

If you sell products in Spain, sooner or later you’ll face the question: should you sell on marketplaces such as Amazon.es, Miravia, AliExpress, eBay or Temu-style platforms, or build your own online store with Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom platform? There’s no single right answer, because each option gives you something the other can’t. This guide compares them honestly and ends with a checklist to help you decide.

Key takeaway

Marketplaces lend you customers; your own store lets you keep them. For many sellers in Spain, the safest strategy is hybrid: validate products and fund growth on one or two marketplaces such as Amazon.es or Miravia, build your own store and its SEO in parallel, and compare full annual costs by category rather than “the commission” against “the price of a website”.

The real trade-off: traffic versus control

The real trade-off is simple: a marketplace gives you traffic, and your own store gives you control.

A marketplace is like renting a stand in a busy shopping center. Customers are already walking past, but the landlord sets the rules, takes a share of each sale and decides where your stand goes.

Your own store is like opening a shop on your own street. You decide everything, from design and prices to promotions and how you talk to customers, but nobody walks in unless you bring them.

Most decisions come down to this: how much do you need the marketplace’s traffic today, and how much do you value control over your brand, your customers and your margins tomorrow?

Selling on marketplaces

Selling on marketplaces gives you ready-made demand and a fast start, in exchange for the customer relationship, brand visibility and part of your independence.

What you get

• Ready-made demand. Shoppers already search on these platforms, and many trust them for payments and returns.
• A fast start. You list products in existing templates, with no website to build.
• Built-in services. Payments, trust signals and, on some platforms, fulfillment services that store and ship your products for you.

What you give up

• The customer relationship. The platform owns the customer. You usually receive only the data needed to fulfill the order, and contacting buyers outside the platform is restricted.
• Brand visibility. Customers often remember “I bought it on Amazon”, not your brand name.
• Independence. Fees, policies, search algorithms and account-health requirements can change, and a suspended account can stop your sales overnight.
• Room on price. Your listing sits next to competitors selling similar products, often compared on price alone.

Each platform has its own audience, categories and rules, so check where products like yours actually sell before committing.

Running your own online store

Running your own online store gives you your brand, your customer data and control over prices, in exchange for bringing in your own traffic and handling operations yourself.

What you get

• Your brand, your way. Design, content, photography and storytelling are entirely yours.
• Customer data. With proper consent, you can build an email list, understand buying patterns and sell again to repeat customers.
• Control over prices and promotions, with no competitor listings on your product pages.
• An asset that grows. Pages that rank on Google keep bringing visitors without paying for every click.

What you give up

• Built-in traffic. You need SEO, ads, social media or an existing customer base to get visitors.
• Someone else doing the work. You handle payment setup, security, legal texts, shipping and customer service, yourself or with partners.

Shopify, WooCommerce or custom? Shopify is a hosted platform: quick to launch, with a monthly subscription that, according to Shopify’s pricing page, includes web hosting and an SSL certificate, plus optional paid apps. WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress whose core is free: flexible and self-hosted, but you’re responsible for hosting, updates and security. A custom store makes sense when you have specific needs that off-the-shelf platforms handle poorly, such as B2B price lists, wholesale ordering or integration with your ERP or warehouse. Our comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a custom store goes into their fees and costs.

Costs: compare categories, not headlines

Don’t compare “the commission” against “the price of a website”: list every cost category over a full year for both options. Fees change often, so check each platform’s official pricing; Amazon.es, for example, explains on its seller pricing page that a selling-plan fee is combined with a referral fee on each item sold, and that the referral fee depends on the product category.

Marketplaces

• Sales commissions or referral fees on each item sold
• Monthly seller subscriptions or listing fees, depending on the platform
• Fulfillment and storage fees if you use the platform’s logistics
• Advertising inside the platform to stay visible
• Returns handling and the cost of products that come back

Your own store

• Platform subscription or hosting, plus paid apps, plugins or themes
• Design and development, both the initial build and later changes
• Payment processing fees
• Maintenance, updates and security
• Marketing to attract visitors: SEO, content, Google or Meta ads and social media

Both

• Product photography, translations, packaging, shipping and the time spent on customer service

Then weigh the total against the margin you keep and, for your own store, the value of customers who come back.

Operations in Spain: payments, shipping, returns and invoices

Whichever channel you choose, selling in Spain means getting payments, shipping, returns, Spanish-language service and invoices right; marketplaces handle part of this for you, while your own store leaves all of it to you. Customers in Spain expect certain basics:

• Payments: cards, and often Bizum and PayPal. Marketplaces handle this for you; on your own store you set it up through a payment provider.
• Shipping: clear delivery times and costs before checkout, tracking numbers and reliable carriers.
• Returns: according to the EU’s official Your Europe guide to returns, consumers who buy online in the EU can generally cancel within 14 days of delivery without giving a reason. Explain your returns process clearly (our Spain website legal checklist lists what an online store must show); marketplaces often add their own return policies on top.
• Customer service in Spanish: quick, polite answers in natural Spanish build trust and good reviews. Poorly translated replies do the opposite.
• Invoices and VAT: issue correct invoices with VAT (IVA), and ask your gestor or accountant about your obligations, especially if a marketplace collects VAT on your behalf or you sell to consumers in other EU countries. For those cross-border sales, the EU One-Stop Shop (OSS) lets you register in one EU country to declare and pay the VAT due.

A hybrid path

The hybrid path means starting on marketplaces and building your own store in parallel; for many sellers, it works better than choosing one or the other:

1. Start on one or two marketplaces where your products already sell, to generate revenue and learn which products, prices and messages work.
2. Build your own store in parallel, with your brand, Spanish-language product pages and your best-selling range.
3. Invest in SEO and content so your store gains organic traffic over time, not only paid visits; our Google SEO guide for businesses in Spain covers the steps.
4. Give customers reasons to buy direct, such as exclusive products, bundles or better service, always within each marketplace’s rules.
5. Rebalance gradually as your own store grows, so no single platform decision can put your business at risk.

How to choose: a short checklist

Start on marketplaces if you need sales soon and can compete on price; prioritize your own store if brand, repeat customers and independence matter more. To decide, answer these questions honestly:

• Do people already search for my kind of product on marketplaces, and can I compete there on price?
• Do I have a brand, products or a service that customers would look for by name?
• Is my margin large enough to cover commissions and in-platform advertising?
• Do I want to build a customer list for repeat sales?
• Can I handle payments, shipping, returns and Spanish-language customer service, alone or with partners?
• How much would it hurt if a marketplace changed its fees or suspended my account?
• Do I have the time or budget to bring traffic to my own store through SEO and marketing?

If the first and third questions get a clear yes, marketplaces are a natural starting point. If brand, repeat customers and independence matter more to you, start building your own store now.

FAQ

Is it cheaper to sell on Amazon or on my own website?

It depends on your products, margins and how you bring in traffic. Marketplaces cost less to start but charge on every sale; your own store costs more to set up and promote, but you keep more of each sale and own the customer relationship. Compare full annual costs by category: commissions, subscriptions, fulfillment and advertising on a marketplace against platform, development, payment, maintenance and marketing costs for your own store.

Can I sell on Miravia and have my own store at the same time?

Yes, many sellers use several channels. Read each marketplace’s policies carefully, especially on pricing and on contacting its customers or directing them elsewhere, and keep stock synchronized so you don’t sell items you no longer have.

Do I need a Spanish version of my store?

If you sell to customers in Spain, yes. Product pages, checkout, shipping and returns information, legal texts and customer service should all be in natural Spanish. It’s also essential for ranking on Google in Spain.

UsualMatrix designs and builds online stores for clients worldwide, sellers in Spain included, working in Chinese, Spanish and English, and can help with the SEO that brings them visitors. Learn more about our web design and online store service or contact us.