Shopee, TikTok Shop or Your Own Store? Which Products Belong Where
In how Singapore shoppers actually buy in 2026, we made the case for using marketplaces and your own store together. The obvious next question is: which products go where?
Most brands never decide. They list everything everywhere and hope. That usually means your best products end up competing on price next to cheaper copies, while your own store sits half-empty.
There is a better way. Start by looking at how each marketplace actually behaves.
Each marketplace has a different shopper
| Platform | Shoppers | Orders per shopper, per year | Average order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopee | ~4 million | 10.1 | S$25 |
| TikTok Shop | ~2 million | 11.9 | S$25 |
| Lazada | ~2 million | 6 | S$39 |
Read across the rows and three different shoppers appear.
Shopee: the everyday habit
The biggest audience by far, buying about ten times a year at around S$25 an order. This is where people go for things they already know they want, at a price they can compare in seconds.
TikTok Shop: the impulse buy
The most frequent buyers of the three — nearly twelve orders a year — at the same small basket. Shoppers here often did not set out to buy anything. A video showed them a product, and they bought it.
Lazada: the less frequent, bigger basket
Lazada shoppers order less often — about six times a year — but spend the most per order of the three, at S$39. It is also the platform that shrank the most in 2025, so treat it as a channel to watch, not one to bet on.
All three run on small, frequent orders. None of them is built for a considered, higher-priced purchase. That tells you most of what you need to know.
The sorting test
Take each product you sell and ask these questions. The answers point to where it belongs.
- Do people search for it by name or by price? → Marketplace. If shoppers already know what they want and just need the best deal, a marketplace puts you right where they are looking.
- Would someone buy it on a whim after seeing it in a video? → TikTok Shop. Impulse products suit the platform where people buy without planning to.
- Does it need explaining before someone will buy it? → Your own store. A marketplace listing gives you a few photos and a price. Your own store gives you the whole story — and the story is what sells it.
- Does it cost well above a typical marketplace basket? → Your own store. Higher-value products need trust, detail and a checkout you control. They also carry the margin you least want to hand over in fees.
- Is it something people rebuy, subscribe to, or collect? → Your own store. Repeat buyers are the most valuable customers you have. On your own store, you keep their email and can invite them back.
- Is it already one of your proven best sellers? → Marketplace candidate. A product that already sells well on its own has proven it can win without the full story. That is exactly what a marketplace listing needs.
What we did at Patch & Bagel
Before Soodo, I ran my own ecommerce brand, Patch & Bagel, for more than ten years. So this is not theory for me.
We only kept our top 3 best sellers on marketplaces. Everything else lived on our own store.
That rule does a lot of work. Marketplace shoppers are buying fast and comparing on price, so the products you put in front of them should already be proven. Your full range — the newer products, the ones that need a little explaining, the ones people discover once they trust you — belongs where you can show all of it.
Three products on a marketplace is a shop window. Your whole range on a marketplace is a second store you have to run, on someone else’s terms.
Three mistakes to avoid
Listing your whole range
Every product you list is another page to keep updated, another stock count to sync, and another fee on every sale. Most of your range will not sell well in a grid sorted by price anyway. Pick a few proven sellers, and keep the rest where they can be shown properly.
Pricing lower on the marketplace than on your own store
Shoppers compare. So do AI assistants. If the same item is cheaper on Shopee, you have taught your customers to skip your store. Keep prices consistent, or sell different products on each channel so there is nothing to compare.
Forgetting the fees when you decide
A product that looks profitable can lose money once commission and transaction fees come off each order. Run the numbers per product before you list it. Our Shopee and Lazada fee calculator does this in a minute.
How your marketplace sales build your own store
The goal is not to keep the two channels apart. It is to let the marketplace feed the store.
- Make your brand name memorable on every listing. Someone who buys a S$25 item from you on Shopee may search your name later — on Google, or by asking an AI assistant. Make sure they find your store when they do.
- Save the best experience for your own store. Full range, bundles, the complete story. Give people a reason to come direct.
- Watch which marketplace products sell well. A strong marketplace seller may deserve a premium version, or a bundle, that lives only on your own store.
For brands ready to shift more of their sales to a store they own, our Shopee to Shopify guide walks through the move step by step.
The short version
Singapore marketplaces are built for frequent, low-value orders: about S$25 on Shopee and TikTok Shop, S$39 on Lazada. Don’t list your whole range there. Put a few proven best sellers on marketplaces — at Patch & Bagel, it was our top 3 — and keep everything else on your own store. Keep prices consistent, count the fees, and let every marketplace sale point people back to your brand.
Not sure how your range should split? Book an introductory call and we will go through it with you.
Sources
- Cube, “E-commerce in Singapore”, June 2026, Tradewinds Q4 2025 dataset. Source for shopper counts, orders per shopper, average order values and Lazada’s 2025 decline. Covers physical-goods GMV on Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop only. Cube notes its data is collected outside-in on a best-effort basis.
Jessica Bong
Jessica Bong is the founder of Soodo, a Singapore-based Shopify development and CRO agency. She built and scaled her own eCommerce brand before starting Soodo, and has since audited 60+ Shopify stores. Jessica also teaches eCommerce at Equinet Academy. Her hands-on experience running a live brand gives Soodo an edge most agencies lack.
