How to Price Your Products After Switching to Zero Commission

A gifting vendor called Ritu spent two years selling hampers on a large marketplace. She priced everything to cover a 22 percent commission, which meant her Rs 450 hampers were listed at Rs 580 to make the math work. Her customers thought her products were expensive. She thought her margins were thin. Both were right.

The Commission Is Already Baked Into Your Prices

When you sell on a high-commission platform long enough, you stop seeing the commission as a fee. It becomes part of your cost structure. Your prices go up to cover it, which makes you less competitive. Your margins stay thin even as you sell more. Switching to a zero-commission platform does not automatically fix this. You have to actively reprice.

Start With Your Real Cost

Before repricing, write down what it actually costs to make or source one unit of your product. Materials, packaging, labour time at an honest hourly rate, and any delivery costs you absorb. This is your floor. Any price above this floor is your margin. On a zero-commission platform, every rupee above your floor goes to you.

Three Things You Can Do With the Difference

When the commission disappears, you have a choice. You can lower your price and become more competitive, which often makes sense if your prices were elevated to cover commission. You can keep your price and grow your margin. Or you can do both a little: lower the price modestly and keep more margin than before. All three are valid. Doing nothing is the worst option.

Repricing Changes How You Talk About Your Work

There is a psychological effect to honest pricing. When Ritu repriced her hampers from Rs 580 to Rs 490 after switching to ShubhConnect, she did not just see more sales. She stopped apologising for her prices. She knew exactly what she made on each hamper, Rs 210 in real margin, compared to the Rs 88 she was actually keeping before. That clarity changes everything.

A Simple Exercise to Start

Take your five best-selling products. Write down the actual cost of each. Write down your current price. Write down what you kept after platform fees. Now calculate what you would keep at that same price on a zero-commission platform. Then ask yourself: is this the right price for this product, or is it artificially high to cover a fee that no longer exists?