In brief
- On 13 October 2026 we checked the clothing commissions of eleven European marketplaces on their official seller pages: nine publish their fee table. Measured against the net price of an €89 dress, the commission ranges from 10.4% on Allegro to 19% on Otto.
- Almost all of them calculate the commission on the VAT-inclusive price, shipping included. A 15% commission on the gross price is 18% of your net revenue in France.
- On an €89 dress, the commission runs from €7.68 (Allegro) to €14.21 (Otto). With a 30% return rate and our example assumptions, between €15.79 and €19.50 of net margin is left per item the customer keeps.
- The published table is not always the one you pay: About You refers to your contract, and a brand we work with pays a single rate there, higher than the public table on its dresses. Read the rate on your settlement statements, not on the seller page.
- Zalando does not publish its fee table, and Rakuten France closed its marketplace on 30 September 2026.
The gross margin on a product sold through a marketplace is its net price minus its purchase cost. The net margin, the one that matters, also deducts the commission, shipping, advertising and the cost of returns, spread over each item the customer actually keeps. On 13 October 2026 we recorded the commissions published by nine European marketplaces for fashion: on an €89 dress, they amount to 10.4% to 19% of the net price, and the gap between two channels often depends less on that rate than on returns and advertising.
How we checked Every rate comes from the marketplace’s official seller page or from a contractual document it publishes itself (terms and conditions, downloadable fee table, partner documentation), all opened on 13 October 2026. We used no figures from blogs or integrators: when a marketplace does not publish its fee table, we say so. The calculations in this article were redone by hand and with our margin simulator.
What is the difference between gross and net margin on a marketplace?
Gross margin is the net selling price minus the purchase or production cost. It is the same on your own site and on a marketplace.
Net margin per item kept deducts everything the sale cost:
- the marketplace commission and its fixed fees;
- outbound shipping, paid on every parcel, including those that come back;
- return transport, inspection and loss of value on every item sent back;
- advertising, paid on every order, kept or not;
- the monthly subscription, spread over the number of sales.
With a return rate r, each item kept requires on average 1 / (1 − r) shipments and r / (1 − r) returns. At a 30% return rate, that is 1.43 shipments and 0.43 returns for every item sold for good. This is why net margin is calculated per item kept, not per order.
How much do European marketplaces take on clothing?
Here are the published clothing commissions as we read them on 13 October 2026.
| Marketplace | Clothing commission | Calculated on | Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon, European stores | 5% up to €15, 10% from €15 to €20, 15% above | Total price paid, shipping included | €39 excl. VAT per month |
| Cdiscount | 15%, jewellery 20% | Gross price, shipping included | €39.99 excl. VAT per month |
| Kaufland, eight countries | 14%, 10% in Poland | Gross price, shipping included | €39.95 or €59.95 excl. VAT per month |
| Otto, Germany | Women’s textiles: 17% up to €25, 16% from €25 to €75, 14% above, per price band, payment included | Gross price and gross shipping | €99.90 excl. VAT per month |
| About You | Women’s textiles: 4% under €35, 5% up to €50, 13% up to €100, 18% above (public table, “refer to the contract”) | Gross price | None, commission-only model |
| bol, Netherlands and Belgium | 4% to 13.2% plus €0.20 to €0.85 per item, depending on the subcategory | Gross price | Not checked |
| Allegro, Slovakia | 11.5% up to €25, then €2.88 plus 7.5% above | Final price, shipping included if paid by the buyer | Not checked |
| eBay, France | 12% plus €0.35 per order | Total amount paid, shipping and VAT included | Not checked |
| Etsy | 6.5% transaction fee and 4% payment fee, €0.30 per payment, $0.20 per listing | Listed gross price, shipping included | None |
| Zalando | Not published: the fee table is only available with a partner account | ||
| eMAG, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary | 7% to 25% depending on the category, detailed table in the contract | ||
The tables cover many other categories. For jewellery, expect 20% on Amazon and Cdiscount, 16% on Kaufland, and 22% to 18% on Otto depending on price. The exact sources are listed at the end of the article. Two absences matter too: Fnac Darty does not publish its category fee table on its public pages, and since 30 September 2026 Rakuten France has displayed a notice saying it has stopped all activity connecting buyers and sellers.
Why does a 15% commission really cost 18%?
Because it is calculated on the VAT-inclusive price, while your margin is read net of VAT. In France, 15% of the gross price is 18% of the net price (15 × 1.20). In Germany it is 17.85%; in the Netherlands, 18.15%. The higher the country’s VAT rate, the more the same commission weighs on your revenue.
Shipping counts as well. On Amazon, Cdiscount, Kaufland, Otto, eBay and Etsy, the commission also applies to the delivery charge paid by the customer. On €5 of shipping charged including VAT, Cdiscount takes €0.75 in commission: the shipping you charge never quite covers the shipping you pay.
For a VAT-registered seller, the VAT invoiced on the commission itself is recoverable: it is the net amount of the commission that goes into the margin.
How much does the same dress cost from one marketplace to another?
Take a dress sold for €89 including VAT to a customer in France, with free shipping. Its net price is €74.17. Here is the commission the published fee tables apply.
| Marketplace | Calculation | Commission excl. VAT | Share of net price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allegro (sold in Slovakia) | 2.88 + 7.5% × 64 | €7.68 | 10.4% |
| Etsy | 10.5% × 89 + 0.30 | €9.65 and $0.20 | 13.0% |
| eBay | 12% × 89 + 0.35 | €11.03 | 14.9% |
| About You | 13% × 89 | €11.57, excluding payment fees | 15.6% |
| Kaufland | 14% × 89 | €12.46 | 16.8% |
| bol, top of range | 13.2% × 89 + 0.85 | €12.60 at most | 17.0% at most |
| Amazon, Cdiscount | 15% × 89 | €13.35 | 18.0% |
| Otto (sold in Germany) | 17% × 25 + 16% × 50 + 14% × 14 | €14.21 | 19.0% |
Nearly €7 separates the cheapest marketplace from the most expensive one, on the same item. But the commission is only one line. Let us add the others, with example values: €22 purchase cost, €6 outbound shipping and €6 return shipping paid by you, €3 handling per return, advertising at 10% of revenue, 30% returns.
| Line, per item kept | Amount |
|---|---|
| Net price | €74.17 |
| Purchase cost | − €22.00 |
| Gross margin | €52.17 |
| Advertising, on 1.43 orders | − €10.60 |
| Shipping, 1.43 parcels | − €8.57 |
| Returns and handling, 0.43 returns | − €3.86 |
| Left before commission | €29.14 |
| Amazon or Cdiscount commission | − €13.35 |
| Net margin per item kept | €15.79 |
Under the same assumptions, net margin per item kept is €16.68 on Kaufland, €17.57 on About You before its payment fees, €18.11 on eBay and €19.50 on Etsy. The costs other than commission add up to €23.03 here, more than the most expensive commission. And these figures assume the commission is refunded on returns, which is not always entirely true: Cdiscount refunds the commission when the buyer withdraws, but Amazon keeps 20% of it, capped at €5, on every refund. For the others, the contract decides.
The return rate, for its part, changes everything. On the same dress, on the same marketplace at 15%, €15.79 is left at a 30% return rate. At 70%, close to the 72.3% we measured on a fashion marketplace for a brand we work with, each item kept has needed 3.3 shipments and every sale loses almost €27. That is the subject of our article on return rates by country and by channel.
How do you prepare for the sales and stay profitable?
A discount should not be decided on gross margin. It should be decided on net margin per item kept, channel by channel, before the sales period. Three things to check.
Calculate the maximum discount for each product on each channel. With the assumptions above and a 20% commission, the €89 dress can take at most a 24.8% discount at a 30% return rate; beyond that, every sale costs money. Returns often rise during the sales, and advertising gets more expensive: redo the calculation with the rates for that period, not the yearly ones.
Look at the commission bands, and at your contract. On Amazon, an item cut from €22 to €19.90 drops from 15% to 10% commission, from €3.30 to €1.99. On Otto, by contrast, the rate falls per slice of the price: a discount never makes you jump a band. On About You, the public table is split into price bands, but the documentation refers to the contract: on the statements of a brand we work with, the commission is a single rate, whatever the price of the dress. Before playing on the bands, check on your statements the rate actually applied.
Check the pricing rules for the period. In the European Union, an announced price reduction is calculated from the lowest price of the previous 30 days, and some countries, France among them, reserve the word for sales to set dates. These rules apply to your offers on a marketplace just as they do on your own site.
How should advertising be counted in the margin?
On a marketplace, advertising is paid per click or per order, and it is also paid on orders that will come back. That is why the table above multiplies it by 1.43 at a 30% return rate. An advertising cost of 10% of ordered revenue becomes 14.3% of kept revenue at a 30% return rate, and 20% at a 50% return rate.
Some marketplaces bundle a little advertising into their subscription: Kaufland includes €30 of Sponsored Product Ads credit per month in both its plans. That credit does not change the per-item calculation, but it lowers the fixed cost of the first months.
The right indicator is therefore not advertising cost as a share of sales, but net margin after advertising, per product. A product that generates revenue while losing money on every sale still shows up as a success in the marketplace’s reports.
Which products should you put on a marketplace?
Those whose absolute margin absorbs the fixed costs per parcel. Shipping, returns, handling and the subscription cost almost the same on a €30 item and on a €150 item. The commission, on the other hand, is proportional. A high value-added product therefore keeps a comfortable net margin even after several round trips, while a low-priced product loses it at the first return.
- Calculate net margin per item kept for your top twenty products, on each channel, with the channel’s real return rate.
- Rank them by net margin, not by revenue.
- Open the marketplace only with the products that stay profitable at its return rate and its commission. The others stay on your own site.
- Set the maximum discount for each product before the sales and before Black Friday.
- Re-read the fee tables every quarter. Amazon has cut its commissions on low-priced clothing, Otto published a new table on 1 April 2026, Rakuten France has closed. Our survey has a date: 13 October 2026.
Calculate my net margin per item kept with the simulator. It now offers the fee tables from this survey, and works out the effective rate for your price.
What this says about the bigger picture
Choosing a marketplace rarely comes down to the right number. Brands compare commission rates, which differ by a few points, while returns and advertising, which appear in no fee table, can turn a product from profit to loss. The only comparison that holds is net margin per item kept, product by product and channel by channel.
That is the calculation we carry out with brands before they open a channel, through our e-commerce and marketplaces expertise. For preparing the catalogue and pricing by country, see also opening a marketplace without losing your margin.
Sources
Pages and documents opened on 13 October 2026.
- Amazon, “Tarifs”, Sell on Amazon France (referral fees by category, refund administration fee). View
- Cdiscount, General terms for making Cdiscount Marketplace available, update of 23 December 2025, article 6.2 and annex 2. View
- Kaufland Global Marketplace, “Konditionen”. View
- Otto Market, “Assortment Overview” (table of 1 April 2026) and seller FAQ. View
- About You, partner documentation “Invoicing & Payout”. View
- About You, “Marketplace” page for partners (commission model, no registration fees). View
- bol, Partnerplatform “Commissie” and the Netherlands commission table for October 2026. View
- Allegro, terms, annex 4 “Opłaty i prowizje”. View
- eBay France, “Frais de vente pour les vendeurs professionnels”. View
- Etsy, “Fees & Payments Policy” and “Etsy Payments Policy”. View
- eMAG Marketplace, “Taxes and commissions”. View
- Rakuten France, seller “Tarifs” page, closure notice. View
FAQ
What is Amazon’s commission on clothing in Europe?
In the European stores, as of 13 October 2026: 5% up to €15, 10% from €15 to €20, 15% above, calculated on the total price paid by the buyer, shipping included, with a minimum of €0.30. The Professional plan costs €39 excluding VAT per month.
Which marketplace takes the lowest commission on fashion?
Among the published fee tables we checked on 13 October 2026, on an €89 dress: Allegro (€7.68 in Slovakia), then Etsy (€9.65, payment fees included) and eBay (€11.03). Amazon and Cdiscount take €13.35, Otto €14.21. The channel’s return rate, however, weighs more than the difference in commission.
How do you calculate net margin on a marketplace?
Start from the net price, deduct the purchase cost (gross margin), then the commission, fixed fees, shipping multiplied by the number of shipments, the cost of returns multiplied by the number of returns, and advertising paid on every order. With a return rate r, each item kept requires 1 / (1 − r) shipments.
Is the commission calculated on the price including VAT?
Yes, for most marketplaces in our survey, and usually shipping included. A 15% commission on the gross price is therefore 18% of net revenue in France.
What is Zalando’s commission?
Zalando does not publish it: its fees and incentives page is only available with a partner account. The figures in circulation come from third parties and contradict each other; ask Zalando for the fee table before calculating your margin.
Can Dotsland work out the profitability of my catalogue on a marketplace?
Yes. We rebuild the net margin per item kept for your products on each channel, with your return rates and real costs, and we decide with you which products to open and the maximum discounts. Get in touch.