Selling on Daraz vs your own website: which is right for your business?

For a Bangladeshi business that wants to sell online beyond a Facebook page, two paths present themselves. Open a seller account on Daraz and list your products where millions of shoppers already are. Or build your own website and bring the shoppers to you. Sellers argue about this endlessly, usually with whichever one they picked coming out on top.

The argument is misplaced, because the two are not doing the same job. Daraz is a marketplace: it rents you a shelf in a very busy shop and charges you for every sale from that shelf. Your own website is your shop. This post lays out what each gives and takes, gives you a way to compare the numbers for your own products, and describes the arrangement most established sellers end up with — which is both.

We do not quote Daraz's commission rates or fee schedules. They vary by category, change over time, and are published in the Daraz Seller Center; read them there for your category before making any decision.

What Daraz gives you

Traffic you did not have to earn. This is the whole proposition. Daraz spends heavily on advertising and has an installed app base; a new seller's products can be seen by shoppers on the first day. Building that reach yourself takes months.

Trust by association. A first-time buyer who has never heard of your brand may still buy because the transaction is with Daraz — payment, delivery and returns are backed by a company they know.

Logistics handled. Daraz's delivery network picks up from you and delivers to the customer, collects COD, and processes returns through its own system. You do not choose or manage couriers.

Campaign events. Platform-wide sales — the 11.11 and similar campaign days — bring surges of buyers that an independent store cannot generate on its own.

What Daraz takes

Commission and fees. A percentage of each sale by category, plus payment fees, plus shipping fees that depend on your arrangement, plus optional charges for promotion and visibility. The Seller Center lists them; add them up for your category.

Your customer relationship. The buyer is Daraz's customer, not yours. You typically cannot message them for repeat sales, build a list, or bring them back with your own offers. Every sale to a repeat buyer is a new commission.

Price pressure. Your product sits next to every competitor's identical or similar product, sorted by price and rating. Margin erodes toward the lowest seller who is still willing to list.

The rules. Listing standards, packaging requirements, shipping deadlines, penalties for late dispatch or cancellations, and account restrictions or suspensions that you have limited power to appeal. Your business depends on a platform whose policies you do not set.

Payout timing. You are paid on Daraz's settlement cycle after the return window closes, not when the customer pays.

What your own website gives you

The customer is yours. Their phone number, their order history, their consent to be contacted. Repeat purchases cost you nothing in commission, and you can bring people back with SMS, WhatsApp and remarketing — see SMS and WhatsApp for your online store.

Your margin is yours. No percentage of the sale goes to a marketplace. You pay for the store platform, the payment method's own fees and the courier — all of which you choose.

Your brand and your rules. Your design, your product presentation, your bundles and offers, your return policy, your pricing — not squeezed into a template beside competitors.

Your data. Which products sell together, where your customers are, which ads bring buyers — visible to you and usable by you, including for Facebook ads through your own pixel (see Facebook Pixel and Conversions API).

What your own website takes

You bring the traffic. Nobody arrives by accident. Traffic comes from your Facebook page and ads, from search over time, from your existing customers, and from the reputation you build. This is real work and a real cost.

You handle operations. Payments (bKash, COD), courier accounts, order confirmation, fraud screening, returns. A good platform makes this manageable — it does not make it disappear.

Trust is earned, not borrowed. A first-time visitor has to decide your store is real. Reviews, a proper domain, clear policies and a professional storefront do that job over time.

A margin framework you can fill in yourself

Take one product you sell. For each channel, write down what you keep from one sale.

On Daraz: selling price − product cost − category commission − payment fee − shipping cost you bear − packaging − any promotion fee = what you keep per Daraz sale

On your website: selling price − product cost − payment fee (zero on COD; bKash's fee on bKash) − courier charge you bear (often passed to the customer) − packaging − your traffic cost per sale (ad spend ÷ orders from ads) = what you keep per website sale

Then add the second sale. On Daraz, a repeat customer costs the full commission again. On your website, a repeat customer who came back from an SMS costs almost nothing. If a meaningful share of your buyers ever buy twice, that line decides the comparison.

The framework will not give the same answer for every product. Low-margin commodity items with no repeat purchase often make more sense on a marketplace. Higher-margin, branded or repeat-purchase products usually favour your own store.

Running both — the arrangement most sellers reach

Established sellers rarely choose one. The common pattern:

• Daraz for discovery. List your range there, accept the commission as a customer-acquisition cost, and use campaign days for volume.
• Your website for the relationship. Put your website address on your packaging, your invoice and your product inserts. Offer something for ordering direct — a small discount, faster dispatch, a bundle not available on the marketplace — within Daraz's rules for what you may include in a parcel.
• Your Facebook page pointing to your website, not to Daraz, so the audience you built yourself buys where you keep the margin.
• Consistent stock and pricing across both, so a customer who sees you on Daraz and then finds your website does not feel cheated either way.

Over time, the share of orders coming direct grows, and Daraz becomes what it is good at: a top-of-funnel channel, not the whole business.

When each is the right call

Start on Daraz first if: you are testing whether a product sells at all, you have no audience of your own yet, you sell a commodity where the customer does not care who the seller is, and you can absorb the commission at your price point.

Start with your own website first if: you already have a Facebook page with an audience, you sell branded, custom or higher-margin products, your customers buy repeatedly, or you have been burned by marketplace suspensions before.

Do both if: you have a stable product range and enough operational capacity to keep stock and pricing consistent across channels — which is most businesses past their first few months.

Frequently asked questions

Is it expensive to have my own website? Far less than it was. We break the options down in how much an ecommerce website costs in Bangladesh. On Eazifiy a complete store — storefront, admin panel, bKash and COD checkout, courier integration — is a monthly subscription from ৳599, with the first 2 months at ৳200 a month on any plan.

Do I need a trade licence for Daraz? Daraz sets its own seller onboarding requirements; check the Seller Center for the current list. A trade licence is useful regardless — bKash merchant and courier accounts ask for it too. See trade licence and registration for an online business.

Can I move my Daraz customers to my website? You cannot export them or message them through Daraz for that purpose. You can make your website visible on your packaging and inserts within the platform's rules, and let customers choose.

Will my website compete with my own Daraz listings? Only if you price them inconsistently. Keep the base price the same and differentiate on what you offer direct — bundles, dispatch speed, loyalty perks.

What about Facebook page selling? It is the third channel most Bangladeshi sellers already have. We compare it with a website in Facebook page vs your own website.

Ready to own the customer relationship? Every Eazifiy plan includes a full storefront with bKash and COD checkout, courier integration and your own customer list, and the first 2 months are ৳200 a month on any plan — see pricing or the full feature list.