Selling on a Marketplace or Your Own Website: Choosing a Sales Channel and the Law That Follows

Suppose you have sold on a marketplace for two years. Sales are good, but the platform keeps changing its rules, fees and in-platform advertising keep eating your profit, and you have no customer list of your own. So you think about building your own online shop. Or the opposite: you have a website but customers do not visit, and you want to sell on a marketplace to reach new customers.

The question is not always either/or. What matters is knowing what each channel changes legally: customer data, rights in the shop account, registrations and duties to consumers. This guide compares the two channels and points out where sellers often go wrong. For reconciling sales, fees and payouts when you sell on several platforms, see Selling on multiple platforms: reconciling sales, fees and payouts. This guide does not repeat that.

The core answer

A marketplace gives you customers and the trust the platform has built, in exchange for putting you under rules and an account the platform controls. Your own website gives you ownership of data and brand, in exchange for finding customers yourself, securing your systems and being a full personal data controller. Most businesses benefit from using marketplaces to find customers and a website as a home base, without relying on a single channel.

The rule (Thai law). Selling goods or services through a website, app or marketplace shop is electronic commerce, and there are rules on registering electronic commerce with the Department of Business Development. Offering goods directly to individual consumers, such as an interactive live stream that closes sales immediately or sales messages through chat, may be direct marketing under the Direct Sales and Direct Marketing Act B.E. 2545, which prohibits carrying on direct marketing without registration, and a ministerial regulation provides that certain kinds of electronic commerce are not treated as direct marketing. In addition, a shop that collects customer data itself is a controller under the Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562, and sellers must comply with consumer protection law on labelling, advertising and buyers' rights.

Our practical view. Before moving most of your sales to either channel, ask: if your account were suspended tomorrow, could you still contact your existing customers? And if customer data on your website leaked, who is liable and what is your plan? If you cannot answer either, fix that before increasing sales through that channel.

1. How the two channels differ

2. What to register

Electronic commerce. Selling goods or services through a website, app or marketplace shop falls under the rules on registering electronic commerce with the Department of Business Development. Individual sellers and legal entities are treated somewhat differently, so check the latest conditions with the Department before opening the shop, and if the business has grown to the point where it should become a company, see Online sellers: when to move from an individual to a legal entity.

Direct marketing. The Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) explains that direct marketing is offering goods directly to the customer, such as sales messages through chat, sales emails or a live stream that interacts and closes the sale immediately. This differs from electronic commerce, where the customer chooses goods, adds them to a basket and pays by themselves on the shop page. Registering electronic commerce alone may not be enough if you sell in ways that count as direct marketing. A direct marketing operator must register with the OCPB, and the law gives consumers a right to cancel within a set period from receiving the goods or services. According to the OCPB's explanation, that period is 7 days.

A ministerial regulation provides that some groups of electronic commerce sellers are not treated as direct marketing, for example an individual's business that has not registered as a direct marketing operator and whose online sales income does not exceed a stated threshold, registered small and medium enterprises, registered community enterprises, and registered cooperatives and farmers' groups. We give no figures in this guide because they may change. A seller should check with the OCPB whether they fall within an exemption, and should not conclude for themselves that "live selling does not need registration".

Failing to register for direct marketing when you fall within it carries criminal penalties under the law, so make sure before you start regular live-stream selling or sales messaging.

Tax. Registering commerce is not registering for tax. A seller must still look at income tax and VAT separately, depending on the seller's status and income. Consult an accountant or see the Revenue Department. When selling through platforms, be aware that a tax law requires operators of electronic platforms to send sellers' transaction data to the Revenue Department under set conditions, so record your income consistently with the platform's reports from the start.

3. Customer data: who owns it and who is liable

On a marketplace, the buyer gives data to the platform under the platform's privacy policy, and the shop receives only what is needed to order and deliver. Common problems are:

• The shop uses names and phone numbers from orders for marketing, which may breach the platform's terms and may exceed the purposes the buyer was told about.
• The shop invites customers to buy outside the platform, which many platforms prohibit and which can lead to account suspension.
• The shop has no list of its own customers, so when the platform changes its rules or fees it has nowhere to go.

On its own website, the shop is a controller of personal data under the Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562. It needs a lawful basis for collection, must state the purposes and retention period, must obtain consent where that is the basis relied on (for example for marketing messages), must keep the data secure, and must have a plan for a leak. See the PDPA compliance checklist for businesses and the data breach response plan.

What a shop website should have:

1. A privacy policy that matches what is actually done, including data collected through cookies and advertising tools.
2. A channel for customers to exercise their legal rights, such as access, correction and deletion.
3. Contracts with outside providers that process data for the shop, such as the order management system, the marketing email provider and the courier.
4. Control over internal access: who can view customer data, and whether card payment data is stored (better to let the payment provider handle it).
5. Terms of use and terms of sale that the customer agrees to before ordering.

4. Platform rules and account risk

When you sell on a marketplace, the relationship between shop and platform is set by the terms of use the shop accepted, which usually give the platform the right to:

• change fees, rules and listing conditions, by notice through its own channels;
• suspend, restrict or close an account on grounds set out in the terms;
• withhold funds not yet due for payout when there is a complaint or suspicion;
• set standards for delivery, returns and shop ratings.

These are standard-form contracts, and a small seller cannot negotiate them. So what you can do is preventive:

• Read the parts that affect money and the account: grounds for suspension, the appeal process, payout timing, withholding of funds and termination of service.
• Keep evidence outside the platform: export order reports, receipts and communication records regularly, because if the account is closed, access to the data may be lost too.
• Check goods before listing: goods with incomplete labels, lacking a TIS (Thai Industrial Standards Institute) standard mark or lacking a required licence are grounds for suspension, and the seller is still liable under the law. See Product labelling under consumer protection law.
• Do not rely on one channel: too high a share of revenue from one platform is the same risk as depending on one customer.

5. Consumers and responsibility when goods go wrong

Whichever channel you sell through, the seller must still treat consumers as the law requires: label and describe goods accurately, not advertise deceptively, and answer for defects. A consumer who buys through direct sales or direct marketing has a right to cancel within the period set by the direct sales law, as described above. For general consumer rights when goods do not match the listing or are not delivered, see Online shopping: goods not as described, and consumer rights.

On a marketplace, the platform usually has its own refund and dispute policy, which does not remove the seller's liability under the law. On your own website, you must write your own return, refund and warranty terms, clearly, consistently with the law and visible before the order.

6. Comparing costs without figures

The two channels have different cost structures. Do not compare only the "fee per order".

• Marketplace. Costs vary with sales: order fees, payment transaction fees, in-platform advertising and the cost of joining promotional campaigns, and the platform may change the structure.
• Own website. Some costs are fixed (system, hosting, maintenance) and some variable (marketing, payment fees), and there are hidden costs: handling personal data, customer service and dealing with fraud.
• Cost of acquiring customers. On your own website this is usually high at first, but repeat customers who buy directly reduce cost over time if you have a customer list you can lawfully use.

To compare, ask your accountant for "profit per order after all kinds of cost" for each channel. For reconciling the different platforms, see the reconciliation guide linked above.

7. An approach many businesses can use

1. Start on a marketplace to test the product, but manage the terms and the evidence from day one.
2. Build your own base, such as a website, a business chat account or a member list whose members have agreed to be contacted, using channels the platform allows.
3. Get the website legally right before heavy advertising: seller information, terms of sale, a privacy policy and the relevant registrations.
4. Check whether live-stream or chat selling is direct marketing before increasing the share of this channel.
5. Track revenue share by channel and set a warning level when one channel exceeds what the business can tolerate.

8. Checklist before deciding

• You have checked whether you must register electronic commerce and/or direct marketing, and whether you fall within an exemption
• You have read the platform terms on account suspension, appeals, withholding of funds and termination of service
• You regularly export order reports and keep evidence outside the platform
• The website has a privacy policy and terms of sale that match actual practice
• You have contracts with outside providers that process customer data
• You have a plan for a customer data leak
• Labels and product information are correct, and required licences are in place
• Income recorded in the accounts matches each platform's reports
• No single channel has a revenue share beyond what you can accept

Further reading

• Selling on multiple platforms: reconciling sales, fees and payouts — accounts when selling through several channels
• Online sellers: when to move from an individual to a legal entity — as the business grows
• PDPA compliance checklist for businesses — the controller's duties
• Product labelling under consumer protection law — information that must be shown
• Online shopping: goods not as described, and consumer rights — the buyer's side
• Business models and legal structure for Thai SMEs — overview of choosing a model

A marketplace gives you customers and a website gives you ownership of data, but each carries different legal duties. Settle registration, customer data and platform terms before you move sales to either channel.

We help check registrations for online selling and prepare privacy policies, terms of sale and contracts with providers for online shops. For an initial consultation, call +66 92 254 2045 or send us the details. See also PDPA and contracts and documents.

This guide is published by Suwanvara Law Firm — a Khon Kaen law firm established in 1986. General information only, not legal advice on a specific matter.