Your own online store vs Mercado Libre or Tiendanube: where should you sell?

Mercado Libre (Latin America's largest online marketplace) gives you buyers who are already looking for what you sell, in exchange for a fee per sale and the marketplace's rules. Tiendanube (a Shopify-style store builder widely used in Argentina) gives you a store with your name, ready quickly, in exchange for a monthly subscription and fees depending on the plan. A custom store of your own gives you full control over the design, the brand and your relationship with customers, with a higher upfront investment and no platform fees.

There is no single best path for everyone: it depends on what stage your business is at and what you want to build. I already broke down the costs of building a store in how much an online store costs in Argentina; the focus here is different: where it makes sense to sell, and what you gain or give up in each place.

How do the three paths differ?

This table sums up what weighs most in the decision. There are no good or bad boxes: each path solves different things.

I deliberately leave out Mercado Libre and Tiendanube percentages and amounts: each platform publishes them and they change often. Before deciding, check the current figures on their official sites.

What do you gain and what do you give up selling on Mercado Libre?

What you gain is huge and should not be underestimated: buyers who are already looking for what you sell. You do not have to go out and get traffic, and people already trust the platform to pay. To start selling or to test whether a product has demand, it is hard to find anything more direct.

What you give up is control. You pay a fee on every sale, your product shows up next to other sellers offering something similar, and the platform sets the rules on how to list, how to respond and how to handle a complaint. On top of that, buyers tend to remember they bought "on Mercado Libre" more than who they bought from, which makes it harder for them to come straight back to you next time.

What changes with a platform like Tiendanube?

With Tiendanube, or similar platforms like Shopify, you get your own store: your address, your logo, your colors and your products with no competition beside them. Buyers enter your store, not a listing, and the details of who bought from you stay on your side. It is quick to set up because you start from a template and the platform makes sure everything works.

The big difference from Mercado Libre is that buyers no longer come on their own: you have to bring them, with your social media, with ads or with good Google rankings. As for costs, it works with a monthly subscription and, depending on the plan, fees per sale. For standard catalogs and growing businesses, it is a logical step.

When does a custom store of your own make sense?

A custom store makes sense when the way you sell does not fit a template, or when the store has to connect with the rest of your business. It is not for everyone, and not for starting out: it is for when you already know how you sell and need the tool to adapt to that, not the other way around.

A real case is Mecohue, a pet shop with a veterinary clinic in Wilde, near Buenos Aires, running since 2003. I built them a website with a catalog, search and filters, with no cart or prices: each product has a button to check availability over WhatsApp. And that website is one part of something bigger: the same system holds the in-store point of sale with its stock, the clinic management, and reports that bring clinic, grooming and store together in one place.

Another example is EQUIBOX, a horse stable manufacturer in Berazategui, also near Buenos Aires. What they sell is built to each customer's specs, so it does not fit a standard listing with a photo and a price. In their configurator, the customer designs their stable in 3D, downloads a PDF spec sheet and requests a quote over WhatsApp. That kind of experience is hard to achieve on a marketplace or with a template.

If you are interested in the difference between templates and custom development beyond online stores, I explain it in custom website vs template.

Who owns the customers in each case?

This is the most important question to ask yourself, because it defines what you are building long term. On a marketplace, each sale is a sale, but the relationship with the buyer goes through the platform. In your own store, whether on a platform or custom-built, each sale also leaves you a customer: you know who they are, what they bought, and you can let them know when something new comes in.

That does not mean one is right and the other wrong. It means that if today you sell only on a marketplace, it is worth thinking about how happy buyers can find you directly next time.

Which combinations work well?

In practice, many businesses do not pick just one. These combinations make sense depending on the stage:

• Start on Mercado Libre to see which products sell and, once that is validated, open your own store for returning customers.
• Make your own store the main channel and use Mercado Libre for a few products that get searched a lot there.
• Start with Tiendanube to launch quickly and, when the business needs its own rules (wholesale, per-customer pricing, made-to-order products), move to a custom store.
• Have a custom store connected to your physical shop, so stock and sales live in the same system.

What should you ask yourself before choosing?

Before deciding, answer these with your own business numbers, not with what the competition does:

• Do my buyers today look for me, or do they look for the product no matter who sells it?
• How much do I sell per month, and how much would I keep after each path's fees?
• Do I have a way to bring traffic to my own store (social media, existing customers, Google)?
• Does what I sell fit a standard listing, or does the customer need to choose options or request a quote?
• Do I need the store connected to my shop's stock or to another system I already use?

Frequently asked questions