If you sell products in Thailand or Southeast Asia, you've almost certainly started on Shopee or Lazada — and for good reason. They bring instant traffic. But as your business grows, a question starts to matter: should you rely on the marketplace, or build your own website? Here's an honest comparison of Shopee vs your own website, and why the smartest sellers eventually do both.
The case for Shopee
Let's be fair to the marketplace — it has real advantages, especially early on:
- Built-in traffic. Millions of shoppers already browse Shopee. You don't have to drive visitors yourself.
- Trust and payments handled. Buyers trust the platform, and checkout, payments and even shipping are built in.
- Low barrier to start. You can list products and be selling the same day.
For testing whether people want your product, Shopee is genuinely useful.
The hidden costs of selling only on Shopee
The convenience comes at a price — several, actually:
- Commission and fees on every sale eat your margin, and they tend to rise over time.
- You don't own the customer. Shopee owns the relationship, the data and the email. You can't easily bring a buyer back or build a loyal list.
- Brutal price competition. Your product sits beside dozens of near-identical listings, so buyers compare on price alone. It's a race to the bottom.
- No brand. Every Shopee store looks the same. There's almost no way to stand out or tell your story.
- Platform risk. Rules, fees and algorithms change without warning — and your whole business is exposed to them.
The case for your own website
Your own online store flips every one of those weaknesses into a strength:
- Keep your full margin. No marketplace commission on each sale — just a small payment-processing fee.
- You own the customer. Every order gives you the buyer's contact details, so you can follow up, run promotions and earn repeat sales.
- Your brand, your story. A real website lets you build something memorable that buyers choose on more than price. (See What Is an E-Commerce Website?)
- Control. No one can change your fees or bury your listings overnight.
The one catch: a website doesn't come with built-in traffic. You have to earn it — through Google, social media and word of mouth. That's very doable (see How to Sell Products Online), but it's the trade-off.
So — Shopee or your own website?
You don't have to choose. The winning move for most Thai sellers is both:
- Use Shopee/Lazada for discovery and to reach shoppers already on the platform.
- Use your own website as your "home base" — where loyal customers, repeat buyers and anyone who finds you on Google or Instagram can buy directly, commission-free.
Over time, you shift more of your repeat business to your own site, where you keep the margin and own the relationship — while the marketplace keeps feeding you new customers. For why having your own store matters even more once you add a CRM, see E-Commerce CRM.
Building your own store is easier than it used to be
The old objection — "building a website is hard and expensive" — no longer holds. With an AI website builder like Krubly, you describe your shop in plain language and get a complete online store, with product pages, secure online payments and a built-in CRM that captures every customer, in minutes. You can be selling on your own site this week. Here's how to take payments online once it's live.
