Over the past few years, Indian ecommerce has seen a major shift: more and more brands — including established ones — are choosing to sell on marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, Blinkit and Ajio instead of relying only on their own websites. While D2C brands initially focused heavily on building independent online stores, the reality of customer behaviour, rising acquisition costs, and trust challenges have pushed companies toward a hybrid or marketplace-first strategy.
This shift is not a step back. In fact, it reflects a more mature understanding of how Indian consumers shop and where brands can scale the fastest. Marketplaces have become essential growth engines, offering visibility, convenience, and conversions that are often hard to achieve on standalone sites.
1. Customer Trust Is Still Higher on Marketplaces
Indian shoppers tend to trust marketplaces more than individual brand websites. This trust comes from:
- Familiar payment and refund systems
- Quick delivery promises
- Brand-agnostic product discovery
- Years of habit and convenience
A customer is far more likely to buy a product they’ve never tried from Amazon than from a website they’ve never visited. This trust alone increases conversion rates dramatically.
For new or lesser-known brands, this trust factor shortens the path to purchase — something that can take months or years to build independently.
2. Rising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
D2C websites rely heavily on paid ads for traffic. With increasing competition, the cost per click and cost per purchase have skyrocketed. Even smaller brands now struggle with:
- High Meta & Google ad costs
- Low conversion on new traffic
- High bounce rates
- Expensive remarketing cycles
Marketplaces solve this because customers already come with high purchase intent. Instead of spending heavily to drive new traffic, brands can “borrow” marketplace demand and focus budgets on product quality, pricing, and branding.
3. Marketplaces Offer Enormous Organic Discovery
One of the biggest advantages of selling on marketplaces is visibility without advertising. Customers naturally land on:
- Bestseller lists
- Category pages
- Sponsored competitor pages
- Search filters
- Style/curated collections
This allows even new brands to get discovered purely through browsing behaviour.
For example, a beauty brand on Nykaa or a fashion brand on Ajio benefits from shoppers who were not even searching for that specific brand. This level of discovery is nearly impossible on a standalone website unless the brand is already famous.
4. Faster Logistics and Reliable Delivery Networks
A major pain point for D2C sites is handling logistics. Marketplaces solve this by offering:
- Faster delivery
- Distributed warehouses
- Quality-checked packing
- Reverse pickup support
- 24/7 customer service
This leads to:
- Fewer delivery failures
- Lower return-to-origin (RTO) rates
- Higher customer satisfaction
Brands save time and resources because they don’t need to build fulfilment systems from scratch.
5. Cash on Delivery (COD) Is Easier to Manage Through Marketplaces
COD is still one of the strongest payment preferences in India. Handling COD through a standalone website comes with challenges:
- Fake orders
- High RTO
- Slow settlements
- Fraud risks
Marketplaces already have robust systems to manage COD efficiently. They also offer:
- Faster COD settlements
- Reduced RTO risk
- Fraud detection
- Confirmation workflows
This makes it much easier for brands to scale nationwide without absorbing the financial risk alone.
6. Marketplace Ratings Improve Brand Credibility
Reviews and ratings on marketplaces carry huge weight. A product with:
- 4+ rating
- Verified purchase reviews
- Customer images
automatically becomes more trustworthy. These marketplace reviews act as social proof, helping new shoppers feel confident.
On a brand’s website, customers may doubt the authenticity of reviews. On marketplaces, this trust is built in — leading to higher conversion rates.
7. The Power of Marketplace Insights and Analytics
Marketplaces provide deep analytics on:
- Search trends
- Category demand
- Competitor performance
- Return reasons
- Pricing impact
- Customer demographics
This data helps brands refine product design, packaging, pricing, and marketing strategies.
For many D2C brands, these insights are more comprehensive than any analytics they could generate on their own website.
8. Scaling Nationwide Becomes Easier
A standalone website needs:
- Its own marketing funnel
- Its own warehousing
- Its own couriers
- Its own support team
Scaling becomes slow and expensive.
Marketplaces already have pan-India delivery networks. A small brand in Jaipur can ship to Chennai, Kolkata, and Guwahati without setting up anything locally. This accelerates scale and revenue far faster than a self-run ecommerce site.
Final Thoughts
Brands aren’t abandoning D2C websites — they’re simply realising that marketplaces offer unmatched scale, trust, and efficiency. A smart ecommerce strategy today is no longer “either-or”, but a hybrid model where brands use marketplaces for reach and conversion, and their own websites for storytelling, retention, and community building.
Marketplaces are the highways of Indian ecommerce — crowded, competitive, but full of traffic ready to buy. This is why more brands than ever are choosing to build their growth on these platforms, not outside them.