Marketplaces collect for you
On marketplace sales the platform collects and remits; on your own site you do.
Selling through a marketplace changes who collects. Every sales-tax state now requires a marketplace facilitator — the platform selling on a third party's behalf — to collect and remit the tax on the sales it facilitates for third-party sellers. The seller doesn't collect again on those sales. Its own direct sales into the same state are still its own to collect on once it has nexus there.
Selling on your own site
- Good at
- You control pricing, customers and data.
- Below a state's threshold, nothing to do there.
- Watch for
Once you cross a state's threshold, you register, collect and file there yourself.
- Best for
- Direct sales, and any business selling services or B2B.
Selling through a marketplace
- Good at
The marketplace facilitator collects and remits on the sales it facilitates.
- Watch for
- The platform's fees.
- Your own direct sales into the same state are still yours to collect on.
- Best for
- Physical goods sold to consumers through a platform.
The words this page teaches
Each links to its glossary definition, which also names the authority behind it and the components that render it.