Chapter 40
Should I sell online, or stay on the marketplace?
This is not a guide telling you to leave the marketplace — a platform sells your goods and the customers who were already looking for something; your own shop window sells neither on its own.
Your own online shop window costs nothing per sale — no commission — and every order still reserves the stock it needs, exactly like a till sale. What it does not do yet: the price shown to a visitor does not include tax, so what they see is not quite what they would pay at checkout. Treat that as a stated limit of the page today, not a pricing choice you made.
What actually changes if you turn it on
A customer orders from your public link; the order becomes a real document only once you accept it, and only then is the stock reserved — so a visitor browsing your window cannot lock up goods nobody has actually bought.
The honest trade-off: a marketplace brings you customers who were never looking for your shop by name. Your own window brings you customers who already are. Neither replaces the other, and this product will not choose between them for you.