Selling online in Malta:
marketplace or your own shop.

Most Malta businesses that sell online do best with two channels working together: a marketplace where new buyers can find them, and their own website shop where they keep more of each sale and the customer’s details. Marketplaces take a cut of every order, while your own shop has a fixed monthly cost and lower card fees, so the more of your buyers come back to you direct, the more your own shop pays for itself.

That is the whole decision in two sentences. The rest of this guide gives you the numbers behind it: how many Malta businesses already sell through their own website, what the main marketplaces charge in their own words, what a website shop costs to run, the tax reporting rule that now applies to marketplace sellers, and a free calculator that shows what you keep per month on each route.

If you already know you want your own shop, our guide to e-commerce websites in Malta covers the build, and our website design packages show what we deliver and when.

Here is how the four routes compare on the points that matter to a small business. None is wrong; they do different jobs.

Social selling deserves a word. Many Malta shops start by posting on Instagram and taking orders by message, and that is a fine way to test demand. But Facebook and Instagram Shops are not available to Malta businesses, so you cannot check out inside the app; our guide to Facebook and Instagram shops in Malta explains what to set up instead.

Your own shop swaps the per-sale cut for fixed costs. The main lines are the build, a monthly platform or hosting cost, apps or extensions, a domain and card fees. Card fees are low compared with marketplace cuts: Stripe’s published Malta pricing is 1.5% + €0.25 for standard European cards, with higher rates for premium and non-European cards.

The line people forget is marketing. A marketplace brings buyers; your own shop does not, at least at first. That is why the calculator asks for a marketing cost per order. For the full build and running costs, see our e-commerce website cost guide, and for the platform choice, our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison.

In return you keep the customer. Every order gives you a name, an email and a reason to sell again, and repeat buyers cost far less to win than new ones. Malta shoppers buy often: in 2025, 20.6% of people in Malta made more than 10 online purchases in three months, about double the EU share of 9.5% (Eurostat, isoc_ec_ib20). Our product page checklist shows what makes them buy from you rather than a foreign site.

Selling online brings a few rules that apply wherever you sell. Here are the ones that catch small sellers out.

The DAC7 rule surprises people who sell “on the side”. It does not create a new tax, but it means the tax authorities will see your marketplace sales, so treat regular selling as a business from the start and speak to your accountant. Our tax guide for online shops covers the sales tax side, and our guide to website legal requirements in Malta lists the pages your own shop needs.

Example 1: a ceramics maker in Gozo. Say a maker sells 40 pieces a month at an average of €45 including delivery, all on a marketplace that charges 6.5% plus a payment fee of 4% + €0.30 and about €10 a month in listing fees. Each month the fees come to about €211, so she keeps about €1,589 of €1,800. Her own shop would cost, say, €60 a month to run, card fees of 1.5% + €0.25 and €4 of marketing per order: about €257 a month, so she would keep about €1,543. At 40 orders the marketplace still wins, narrowly.

Now say half her buyers are repeat customers who found her on the marketplace and would happily buy direct. If she moves those 20 orders a month to her own shop, she pays no marketing on them and still keeps the marketplace for new buyers. That mix is where most makers end up.

Example 2: a clothing boutique in Sliema. Say a boutique sells 150 orders a month at €60 through Instagram messages and bank transfers. Orders get lost, sizes are asked twice and nobody knows what sold. With her own shop, card fees of 1.5% + €0.25 come to about €173 a month, plus €60 running cost. A marketplace charging 15% would take €1,350 a month on the same sales. Here the own shop, with click and collect at the counter and Instagram posts linking to product pages, is the clear choice.

The numbers in both examples are examples only. Use the calculator above with your own fees, because rates differ by marketplace, category and country.

We build online shops for Malta and Gozo businesses on the platform that fits how you sell, with card payments, delivery zones for Malta and Gozo, clear product pages and the consumer wording the law asks for. You own the shop, the domain and the customer list, and we can connect it to the marketplace you already use.

Shops are quoted after a short call because the work depends on how many products you have and how you deliver. We have 18 Google reviews from real clients. If you also want buyers sent to the shop, our Facebook and Instagram ads start at €1,249 a month plus ad spend. See our website design packages for what each one includes.

Ready to sell online with a shop you own? Apply now for an online shop ↗