Marketplace Fee Comparison: Amazon vs Etsy vs Shopify

A product can be profitable on Shopify but weak on Amazon, or strong on Etsy but difficult to scale with ads. Each channel has different fee lines, traffic sources, fulfillment expectations, and conversion behavior.

Compare channels with one consistent product cost and selling price before deciding where to focus.

Compare platform fees, payment processing, fulfillment or shipping, advertising, discounts, returns, and operational effort.

Amazon may offer stronger buyer intent but higher fulfillment and referral costs. Shopify offers more control but requires traffic acquisition. Etsy can work well for differentiated products but still needs fee and ad modeling.

Choose the channel where the product has both margin and operational fit. A high-margin channel that requires too much support may not be the best first focus.

Use marketplace comparison to test realistic scenarios, not only best-case assumptions.