Selling on Shopee and Lazada Is Costing You More Than You Think

You’re making sales. The orders are coming in, the reviews are building up, and your Shopee or Lazada store is starting to feel like a real business. That’s genuinely good.

But there’s a number most Filipino online sellers don’t calculate until much later, how much of every sale they’re actually keeping.

Because before your money reaches you, the marketplace has already taken its cut. And that cut is bigger than most sellers realise.

This article isn’t telling you to stop selling on Shopee and Lazada.

It’s telling you what they’re actually costing you, and what it looks like when you own your own store alongside them.

The Commission You’re Paying Every Single Month

Shopee charges sellers a commission on every completed transaction. 

The rate varies by category but typically sits between 1% and 9% of the item price, plus additional fees for using ShopeePay and for Shopee’s Guaranteed Delivery program.

Lazada’s structure is similar, commission rates from around 1% to 8% depending on the category, with additional service fees on top.

That might sound manageable when you read a percentage. Here’s what it looks like in pesos on a realistic seller’s month:

Monthly Sales on Shopee/Lazada	Commission at 7% (approximate)	What You Actually Keep
₱20,000	₱1,400	₱18,600
₱50,000	₱3,500	₱46,500
₱100,000	₱7,000	₱93,000
₱200,000	₱14,000	₱186,000

This is before factoring in platform advertising costs like Shopee Ads, Lazada Sponsored Solutions, which most competitive sellers also pay to maintain visibility. And it’s before the flash sale discount requirements, voucher subsidies, and free shipping programs that the platforms periodically pressure sellers to join.

Every single month, that money goes to the platform, not to you, not to growing your business, not to your marketing budget.

What Else You’re Giving Up Besides Money

Commission is the obvious cost. But there are three other things marketplace selling costs you that don’t show up in your payout report.

Your customer data

When someone buys from your Shopee store, Shopee owns that transaction relationship. 

You don’t get the buyer’s email address. You can’t follow up with them directly. You can’t build a mailing list. 

You can’t retarget them with your own ads.

Every repeat customer you make through a marketplace is a customer the marketplace owns, and can show your competitor’s listing to next time they search.

Your brand identity

Your Shopee store looks like every other Shopee store: the platform’s design, the platform’s checkout, the platform’s branding. 

Buyers remember buying from Shopee. They often don’t remember who the actual seller was. 

Building a recognisable brand is nearly impossible when your storefront is indistinguishable from 50 competitors on the same search results page.

Your business continuity

Shopee and Lazada change their terms. They’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again, commission rates, payout schedules, visibility algorithms, seller requirements. 

If your entire business lives on one platform, you’re exposed to decisions made by a company whose interests are not the same as yours. 

Sellers have had accounts suspended, listings removed, and visibility throttled with little recourse.

The Case for Having Your Own Store

Having your own online store doesn’t mean leaving Shopee. 

The smartest Filipino ecommerce sellers run both, the marketplace for discovery and volume, their own store for margin and relationships.

On your own store: zero commission on every sale. Your customer’s email address is yours. Your brand is front and centre: your checkout, your policies, your price.

And the cost of running that store is a fixed monthly amount that doesn’t scale with your sales volume.

That last point matters. Marketplace commissions grow as your sales grow. Hosting costs stay flat.

The more successful you become on Shopee, the more you pay them. The more successful you become in your own store, the more you keep.

Two Ways to Build Your Own Online Store in the Philippines

There are two realistic paths for a Filipino seller building their own store, and they suit different types of sellers.

Option 1: OLITT Online Shop Builder (Simplest, Fastest)

Truehost’s OLITT shop builder is a drag-and-drop platform designed for sellers who want to be online in under 30 minutes without touching any code.

• You get unlimited products
• Mobile-ready store
• Built-in payment integrations including GCash-compatible options, Facebook and Instagram shop connections
• Your own domain.

 It costs $49 per year, roughly ₱2,800 annually, or about ₱233 per month. No commission on sales. No per-transaction fees beyond your payment processor.

Option 2: WooCommerce on cPanel Hosting (Most Flexible)

WooCommerce is the e-commerce plugin for WordPress, and it’s the most widely used online store platform in the world. It’s free to install. 

You get total control over:

• Your store’s design
• Checkout flow 
• Shipping rules, 
• Discount structures, and integrations.

The trade-off is a slightly steeper setup compared to a drag-and-drop builder, but it’s not as technical as it sounds.

Truehost cPanel hosting starts at ₱90 per month, and WooCommerce installs in a few clicks through Softaculous.

	Shopee/Lazada	OLITT Shop	WooCommerce (Truehost)
Monthly cost	Free to list + commission per sale	₱233/mo (no commission)	₱90/mo hosting (no commission)
Commission on sales	1%–9% per transaction	Zero	Zero
You own customer data	No	Yes	Yes
Custom branding	Limited	Yes	Full control
Technical skill needed	None	None	Basic
Built-in traffic	Yes (millions of shoppers).	No, you bring traffic	No, you bring traffic

The Traffic Question And How to Actually Answer It

The most common objection to building your own store is: “But Shopee already has all the customers. My own store will get zero traffic.”

This is true, and it’s an honest concern. Shopee has millions of active Filipino shoppers.

Your own store starts with zero organic traffic. You have to bring people to it.

But this is also exactly what your Shopee store already requires, just invisibly.

The sellers getting visibility on Shopee are the ones buying Shopee Ads, joining flash sales, offering free shipping vouchers, and hustling for five-star reviews to beat the algorithm. 

That’s not free traffic. That’s paid and subsidised traffic, and the bill goes to Shopee.

There is a difference when you drive traffic to your own store, through Facebook posts, Instagram content, TikTok videos, or a simple Google Business profile. 

That traffic lands on a page where 100% of the sale is yours, and you capture the customer’s contact details. You can sell to them again directly.

The practical approach most Filipino sellers use: 

• Keep Shopee and Lazada running for volume and new customer discovery
• Use your own store as the destination for repeat buyers and direct social media traffic. 

You don’t have to choose one or the other. You stop leaving money on the table for customers you’ve already won.

What People Ask Before Making the Move

Can I accept GCash in my own store?

Yes. Both OLITT and WooCommerce support Philippine payment integrations. OLITT includes mobile payment support out of the box. 

For WooCommerce, payment gateway plugins for local options are widely available and free to install. 

GCash, bank transfer, and credit card via PayMongo or Paymaya can all be integrated into a self-hosted store.

What about shipping? Can I connect to local couriers?

Yes. WooCommerce has integrations for major Philippine logistics partners. 

You set your own shipping rates, define your own zones, and choose your own couriers, J&T, Lalamove, LBC, Ninja Van. 

You’re not locked into the platform’s logistics partners or pricing.

I’m not technical. Can I actually build this?

OLITT is built specifically for non-technical sellers. If you can upload photos to Shopee, you can create an OLITT store. 

For WooCommerce, Truehost’s one-click install handles the technical setup. 

The store configuration, adding products, setting prices, setting up shipping, is straightforward and well-documented.

Is it worth it if I’m only selling ₱20,000 a month?

At ₱20,000 a month with a 7% commission, you’re paying roughly ₱1,400 per month to Shopee. OLITT costs about ₱233 per month with zero commission. 

Even at this sales volume, your own store saves you over ₱1,000 a month, money that goes back into your pocket or your inventory. The breakeven is immediate.

Do I need to maintain two stores?

Running both takes some coordination, updating product listings in two places, managing two sets of orders, but it’s manageable. 

Many sellers use their own store for bundles, exclusive products, or loyal customer pricing that they don’t offer on the marketplace. 

Others use it purely as a direct checkout link they share on Instagram or Viber group chats. You decide how much you use it.

The Longer You Wait, the More It Costs You

Every month you sell exclusively through Shopee or Lazada is another month the platform collects commission on sales you already earned. 

It’s not a crisis, but it is a slow, steady leak that compounds over time.

Building your own store now, even a simple one, gives you a foundation that grows in value as your business grows. 

Your customer list builds. Your brand becomes recognisable. Your margins improve. 

And you’re no longer entirely dependent on a platform that can change its rules without asking you.
Ready to keep more of what you earn? Launch your own online store with Truehost- OLITT Shop Builder at ~₱233/month with no commission on sales, or WooCommerce on cPanel hosting from ₱90/month. See your options here.