Dental marketplace or your own online shop: what works best
When a dental manufacturer decides to sell online, the first question is almost always the same: your own online shop or a dental marketplace? The honest answer is that it depends on what you want to achieve, and that you often do not have to choose.
Let us start with your own shop, because it is the choice that seems most natural. It gives you full control: your brand front and centre, prices set by you, customer data that is yours, no commission on sales.
The cost, however, is not where it seems. Building the site is the easy part. The real work comes afterwards: maintaining it, updating the catalogue, handling payments, calculating the right VAT for each country, answering customers in their language.
And above all, bringing people to it. A new online shop starts with zero visitors. Whether they come from Google, advertising or social media, it takes months of work or an ongoing budget. It is the cost almost everyone underestimates, and it is the one that decides whether the shop sells or stays an empty window.
If the shop also has to serve several countries, every language multiplies the work: translations, search engine positioning country by country, support in each language.
A marketplace turns the calculation around. You have less control: you are one supplier among others, and you follow the platform's rules. In return, most of the hidden work is done by someone else: translations, payments, VAT calculation, shipping, and above all the flow of customers.
The cost is also different in form. Your own shop costs money every month, whether it sells or not. A marketplace costs mainly when it sells, through a commission on sales. On Oralzon, for example, the first 180 days come with no subscription fee, followed by an annual fee of 199 euros, and the 7% commission is paid only on what you sell.
That is why the two routes are not really alternatives. Many companies end up using them together, each for the purpose it serves best.
Your own shop serves the customers who already know you, who look for your brand and whom you want to look after directly. A marketplace helps you be found by those who do not know you yet, and lets you test new markets without investing first.
It is above all abroad that the difference counts. Opening a shop in German to see whether the German market responds means investing before you know. Putting the same products on a marketplace that is already translated means finding out while spending only when orders arrive.
One practical tip if you use both: keep your prices aligned. The same product at very different prices on the two channels confuses customers and puts the channels in competition with each other.
If you want to understand how much work a marketplace takes off your hands, the quickest way is to see it: you can open the vendor dashboard in a demo store, without signing up.
In short: your own shop gives control and full margin but requires ongoing work and above all the ability to attract visitors, a marketplace gives less control but takes away almost all the hidden work and costs mainly when it sells, and for many companies the best choice is to use both, the shop for loyal customers and the marketplace for new customers and foreign markets.