Best online marketplaces to sell on in 2026, 8 compared

Amazon is the best online marketplace to sell on in 2026 for most stores, with eBay, Etsy and Walmart Marketplace close behind in the United States and Cdiscount and Fnac as the French options. The right pick depends on your products, your target country and the fees your margin can take.

Key figures 2026

Each row names the population it covers, because marketplaces count buyers in different ways.

Which are the best online marketplaces to sell on in 2026?

Amazon, eBay and Etsy lead this ranking because they publish the largest figures, and the five others earn their place through a specific audience, country or selling format.

Prices are those displayed on November 5, 2026, and several pages adapt to the visitor's country.

How we compared online marketplaces

We compared the eight marketplaces from their seller pages, fee grids, terms and results filings, without opening a shop on any of them. These criteria set the order.

• Audience figures published by the marketplace, a regulator or an audience panel, which is why TikTok Shop sits below the three marketplaces that publish buyer counts.
• Cost to start and clarity of the fee grid, including whether the commission applies to shipping and taxes.
• Who can join, from an individual with a few items to a registered business with barcodes.
• Fulfillment, advertising and selling tools offered by the marketplace itself.
• Countries covered, because the ranking mixes the United States, the UK and France.

Vinted Pro and Fnac Marketplace sit lower because their scope is narrower, so a French seller of electronics should move Fnac and Cdiscount up.

How do you choose an online marketplace to sell on?

Start from the buyer, because a marketplace only pays off when your product matches what its shoppers already search for. The steps below turn that into a shortlist.

1. List the countries you can ship to and keep the marketplaces that serve them.
2. Check the entry rules, such as a business tax ID, GS1 barcodes or business registration.
3. Compute the total fee on one real order, shipping and tax included where the grid counts them.
4. Match the audience figures above to your category.
5. Test one marketplace for a quarter before you add a second.

For the fee step, our guide to marketplace seller fees works the same calculation on Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Walmart with a real order.

How much do online marketplaces cost to sell on?

Entry costs run from nothing to €49.99 a month, and the commission on each sale is the larger cost for most sellers. Walmart Marketplace lists no setup or monthly fee, Fnac charges €49.99 a month, TikTok Shop states a 6% commission in the US, and Vinted puts its fee on the buyer.

The percentage does not apply to the same base everywhere. eBay's fee page calculates its 13.6% on the total sale including shipping and sales tax, and Cdiscount multiplies the rate by the price including VAT plus shipping. Amazon US shows a plan fee plus a referral fee that is the greater of a percentage of the total price or a minimum amount.

Advertising adds a second layer of cost. Etsy's Offsite Ads fee of 15% applies only to sales that come from one of its ads, and it becomes a fixed 12% for the life of the shop once sales pass $10,000 over 365 days.

Which marketplace fits which seller?

The answer follows the country and the product, so the picks below split by market.

In the United States

Amazon suits branded products and FBA, eBay suits used and one-off goods, Etsy suits handmade and vintage items, and Walmart suits a seller with barcodes and US stock who wants no monthly fee. According to the US Census Bureau, online sales reached $340.2 billion in Q2 2026, which is 17.1% of US retail sales.

In France and Europe

Amazon reached 41.4 million unique visitors a month in France in Q3 2026 according to Fevad and Médiamétrie, well ahead of Cdiscount at 15.5 million and Vinted at 19.9 million. Cdiscount and Fnac add French audiences with flat monthly fees, and Vinted Pro opens a second-hand channel for registered businesses. Fnac Darty says its online sales passed 21% of group sales in the first nine months of 2026, driven by its marketplaces.

What are the risks of selling on a marketplace?

The main risk is that the marketplace controls the terms, and several changed in 2026. TikTok Shop's standard commission in France became 9% on January 8, 2026, according to its Academy page, and Amazon's fuel and logistics surcharge on Fulfillment by Amazon fees in Europe goes from 1.5% to 2% on November 2, 2026, as Amazon.fr announces.

A marketplace can also close. Rakuten France states on its site that its marketplace stopped trading on September 30, 2026, with some steps still possible until November 10, 2026. Keep your customer list, your product data and your own store outside any single marketplace, so that a fee change or a closure costs you one channel while the business keeps running.

Should you sell on a marketplace or on your own store?

Many sellers do both, because marketplaces bring buyers while your own store keeps the customer relationship and the margin. In 2024, Eurostat found that 45% of EU enterprises with web sales used a marketplace, and that marketplaces produced 1.30% of total turnover while own websites and apps produced 7.08%.

If you have no store yet, compare the best ecommerce platforms, then add a payment gateway and shipping software. Once traffic arrives, our guide to the ecommerce conversion rate shows how to read your store's numbers.

Conclusion

Pick one marketplace that matches your product and country, work out the total fee on a real order, and run it for a quarter before adding another. The first step is to open the fee page of Amazon or of the marketplace that serves your country and price one of your own products.