7% sounds like a lot until you look at what traditional distribution keeps

A supplier hearing about a 7% commission has an instinctive reaction: that is a lot. It is an understandable reaction, but the number alone says nothing until you establish what you are comparing it with.

In traditional dental distribution the product passes through several stages. The manufacturer sells to the distributor, the distributor to the practice, and in between there may be an agent or a regional representative.

Each stage retains a share. Wholesale distribution margins and agency commissions, added together, represent a percentage well known to those in the sector and clearly above a single-digit figure.

The proper comparison is therefore not between 7% and zero, but between 7% and what it costs today to reach a customer through existing channels.

Then there is the question of what that percentage buys. A marketplace commission does not merely pay for a listing.

It covers payment handling, which carries its own cost even when managed in-house, and it covers the fact that payment is secured at the moment of the order rather than at sixty days.

It covers translation of product pages into eight languages, which as a standalone project costs thousands of euros for a mid-sized catalogue.

It covers traffic, meaning that professionals arrive on the platform without you having to bring them. It is the item that weighs most on a proprietary site and that almost nobody budgets for.

The right way to assess this is not to look at the percentage but to calculate your cost per acquired customer on the channels you use today. How much you spend, across sales force, trade fairs, samples and entry discounts, to acquire one new practice.

Set against that figure, 7% on an order actually concluded reads differently, because it is paid only once the sale has happened.

The annual fee of 199 euros follows the same logic: it is the only fixed cost, and it amounts to less than a single day's presence at a trade fair.

This does not mean the marketplace replaces other channels. It means it is the only one where the cost comes after the revenue, and for a company wanting to test new markets that is a substantial difference.

In summary: the comparison is with the margins of the existing supply chain rather than with zero, the commission covers payments, translation and traffic, it is paid only on concluded sales, and the fixed annual cost is worth less than a day at a trade fair.