Daraz vs Your Own Online Store — What's Actually Better for Pakistani Sellers?
2026-06-16 · 8 min read
Almost every Pakistani seller starts with the same question: should I sell on Daraz, or build my own online store? Both work — but they're not the same business model. One rents you traffic; the other builds you an asset. Here's an honest comparison so you can decide what makes sense for your shop.
How Daraz Actually Makes Money From Your Sales
Daraz gives you instant access to millions of buyers — that's its real value. But that reach isn't free. On every sale you typically pay a category commission (often 5–15%), plus payment-processing and sometimes fulfilment fees. On a Rs. 1,000 product, it's normal to hand over Rs. 100–200 before you've counted your own costs. During big sale events, you're also expected to discount heavily to stay visible. The traffic is huge, but the margin per order is thin and the rules are Daraz's to change.
What You Control vs What Daraz Controls
- Branding: On your own store, customers see your name. On Daraz, they remember "I bought it on Daraz."
- Customer data: Your store gives you the buyer's number and order history. Daraz keeps that relationship.
- Pricing & promotions: You set them freely on your own store. On Daraz you compete in a price race against sellers next to you.
- Payouts: Your store (with JazzCash/EasyPaisa) can pay you faster than marketplace settlement cycles.
A Realistic 1-Month Cost Comparison
Say you sell 100 orders a month at Rs. 1,500 each — Rs. 150,000 in sales. On Daraz, a ~12% blended commission/fee load is roughly Rs. 18,000 gone every month. On your own store, you mainly pay a fixed software cost (PaakiShop is PKR 2,800/month) plus payment-gateway charges of 1–2%. Over a year that difference — tens of thousands of rupees — is the gap between renting traffic and owning your channel. The catch: your own store doesn't bring its own buyers. You have to drive them.
Why Smart Sellers Do Both
The sellers who win usually don't pick one — they use Daraz for discovery (let new customers find you) and their own store for repeat business (where margins are better and you own the relationship). The trick is keeping stock and pricing in sync so you never oversell the same item on two channels. PaakiShop's marketplace integration keeps one inventory across your own store and marketplaces automatically, so a sale in one place updates the other — no manual juggling, no overselling.
So Which Should You Choose?
If you're just testing demand for a product, start on Daraz — the traffic shortens your learning curve. The moment you have repeat customers, start building your own store so you stop paying commission on people who already know you. Most Pakistani businesses end up running both, with PaakiShop as the single dashboard tying inventory, billing, and online orders together.
Run your own store and your marketplaces from one place
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