The choice is usually framed as online versus offline, which is the wrong axis. The real question is who owns the customer relationship, and therefore who learns. A marketplace gives you transactions and keeps the learning. A distributor gives you a market position and keeps the relationship. Selling direct keeps both and costs the most.
What each one actually gives you
| Marketplace | Distributor | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first sale | Weeks | Months, sometimes a year |
| Who the customer belongs to | The platform | The distributor |
| Who answers a complaint | You, under the platform's rules and timeframes | They do, in their language and their time zone |
| What it teaches you | What sells at what price | Why it sells, and to whom |
| What it costs you | A commission on every order, and the price becomes public | A margin, and a territory you cannot easily take back |
The obligations do not change with the channel
This is where the two paths are identical and where companies are surprised. Whether a product arrives through a platform or a distributor, someone established in the European Union has to be answerable for it, the product rules that apply still apply, and producer responsibility registrations are still owed. A marketplace does not absorb those; it usually asks you to prove you have handled them before it lets you list.
A sequence that usually works
- Settle the compliance question first, because both channels require it and neither waits for it.
- Use a marketplace to learn what sells, at what price, with what objections — treat it as paid market research that happens to generate revenue.
- Take that evidence to distributor conversations. A distributor who can see real European sales figures is a different negotiation from one being asked to believe a forecast.
- Decide territory and exclusivity last, and in writing, once you know what the market is worth.
Price is the trap. A public marketplace price becomes the ceiling a distributor can sell under, and a distributor who discovers your platform price after signing will renegotiate. Decide the price architecture across both channels before either one starts.
Where to read it yourself
Official pages, opened and checked on 15 October 2026. Where a rule changes, these are the addresses that change with it — this article does not.