Selling on Amazon, Flipkart, or another marketplace gets you in front of customers who are already looking to buy. That's the appeal — you're not building an audience from zero. But you're also renting that audience. The marketplace owns the customer relationship, the data, and often the pricing pressure that comes with it.

Your own online store is the opposite tradeoff. You own the customer relationship, the data, and the branding. But you have to bring your own traffic, which takes time and marketing spend that a marketplace listing doesn't need.

Most businesses that do well long-term use both. Marketplaces for reach and discovery, your own store for margin, branding, and repeat customers you can market to directly — without a marketplace's cut or rules in the way.

If you're only just starting, a marketplace listing can validate demand faster. But don't wait too long to build your own store — the businesses that skip it usually regret being fully dependent on a platform they don't control.