Run both channels: the honest math on Amazon vs your own site
We fact-checked the unit economics with 2026 fee data. A cold single-unit DTC order can actually lose money versus the same unit on Amazon. That doesn't mean skip your own site — it means know exactly why you're running it.
It's tempting to assume your own storefront is pure upside — no marketplace referral fee, keep the margin. The verified numbers are more interesting than that.
The counterintuitive part
For a small-standard RAM or SSD item, an Amazon FBA sale pays an ~8% referral fee plus fulfillment. Your own site skips the referral — but fulfilling a single-unit order through Amazon MCF carries a premium over plain FBA that's larger than the referral you saved. Net: a cold one-unit DTC order can lose roughly $2–3 versus selling that same unit on Amazon.
Where your own site wins
- Higher-ASP SKUs, where the saved referral outweighs the MCF premium
- Multi-unit orders — MCF per-unit cost drops sharply at 4+ units
- The customer relationship: email, remarketing, no marketplace dependency
- Buy with Prime (on our roadmap) as a conversion bridge that still captures the customer
So the verdict is run both channels in parallel. Keep your own-site price at or below your Amazon price (it's required by Amazon's fair-pricing policy anyway), treat Buy with Prime (a roadmap bridge for us) as the conversion path, and use the own-site channel to build the asset a marketplace never gives you: a direct line to your customer.
The strategic value of your own storefront isn't the referral fee you save on order one. It's that order two comes to you directly.
Bizdia is built for exactly this posture: push every order to the same ShipStation → FBA/MCF pipeline your Amazon business already uses, so running the second channel adds reach without adding a second operation.