Is it worth selling on OnBuy? The facts to weigh.

At a glance

What OnBuy is now

OnBuy’s sell page cites “millions of new buyers” across 21 markets and 17 major departments¹. One seller account covers every selling location, from Austria to the UK, with inventory kept separate for each¹. Retail Technology Innovation Hub describes OnBuy as a UK-based online marketplace⁶.

ChannelX reported the launch of OnCommerce in June 2026: one seller account, one central catalogue and one combined balance, with sellers trading on OnBuy straight away and easyShop and Comet due to go live later in the year⁷. The developer documentation now uses the OnCommerce name as well⁵. ChannelX’s February 2026 interview with Cas Paton refers to OnBuy’s acquisition of Comet⁸.

For scale, ChannelX’s June 2026 report gave OnCommerce a combined reach of “over 140 million shoppers” and said returning customers account for 51% of OnBuy sales⁷. An undated guest opinion piece on GS1 UK’s website, with no named author, said OnBuy reported GMV of US$200m in 2025 and drew 65% of its traffic from the UK⁹.

Who can sell on OnBuy

Only businesses can sell³. By accepting OnBuy’s seller terms, you warrant that you are “a business”, and a person signing up for a company must be authorised to accept the terms for it³. Each seller may have one account, and OnBuy can turn down any application at its sole discretion³.

Your business must be registered in a country on OnBuy’s supported list, with a business bank or building society account in that same country³.

For verification, have these ready¹:

• Business registration details, plus VAT details if they apply¹.
• Valid photo ID¹.
• Proof of address no older than 3 months¹.
• A mobile phone for verification¹.

OnBuy puts the sign-up itself at “less than 15 minutes”, then sends the next steps by email¹. It does not say how long approval takes¹.

If you are based outside the UK:

• OnBuy accepts businesses registered abroad, provided their country is on its supported list³.
• OnBuy says businesses based in the other 25 countries on its VAT list, which include Norway, Switzerland and the United States, do not need a UK VAT number to sell on OnBuy UK unless they are already registered for UK VAT¹.
• Businesses based elsewhere must register for UK VAT and give OnBuy the number before selling on OnBuy UK, though OnBuy’s other marketplaces stay open to them¹.
• Your prices have to be delivered duty paid, with VAT included, and where OnBuy is not the deemed supplier, collecting and reporting the VAT is up to you; check with your adviser³.

The sign-up checklist and the review bar

Alongside those documents, OnBuy’s sign-up checklist has six requirements¹:

• A link to your current selling platform¹.
• 50 reviews from the past 12 months, with 90% or more rated 4/5 stars¹.
• GTINs for your products, unless those products do not normally carry barcodes¹.
• A bank account in the currency of each site you pick, or a WorldFirst or Payoneer account instead¹.
• A way to handle returns in every country you sell to¹.
• A chargeable debit or credit card¹.

If your reviews are spread across several platforms, ask OnBuy how it counts them before you apply. Plan the first payment too: OnBuy treats the application fee as your first monthly subscription, and it is non-refundable³.

Sales fees and other charges

OnBuy charges a sales fee on each product sold, “on the total price of a Product including any delivery charges”². Unless your category has its own rate, you pay the Standard Selling Fee of 15.00%². The UK minimum is £0.25 per product, and OnBuy adds VAT to its fees where applicable².

OnBuy last modified the page on 19 January 2026, and it gives no effective date for the rates². It also says OnBuy does not charge a separate transaction cost².

Three more charges apply to refunds, disputes and chargebacks²:

• Refunds: 20%, with a £0.25 minimum and a £5.00 maximum; the fees page applies the 20% to the order value, while the seller terms apply it to the refunded sales fee, per line item²³.
• Disputes: £6.50².
• Chargebacks: £14.00².

OnBuy Boost is an optional extra for sponsored listings: you choose a level from 5% to 30% on top of the standard fees, paid only when the product sells¹. ChannelX reported in August 2023 that, from 23 August, Boost would have five levels, from Light (5%) to Ultra (30%), charged only on sales made directly through a sponsored listing¹⁰.

OnBuy’s sell page says money typically reaches you “7 days after the expected delivery period ends”, and withdrawals can be monthly or at any time you have a balance¹. After you ask for a withdrawal, OnBuy starts the payment by the end of the next business day, and it never pays into a third party’s account³.

Subscription packages and their terms

Two account packages are named on OnBuy’s sell page: Partner and Professional¹. Professional has everything in Partner plus sitewide branding and a Professional Seller badge, with advanced store and promotion tools¹.

When this guide was checked on 8 November 2026, neither OnBuy’s sell page nor its fees page showed package prices¹². Check the current prices with OnBuy before you commit.

The sell page and the seller terms set out how the packages work¹³:

• Packages work on “a simple 30-day rolling agreement”, billed monthly¹.
• If your first payment falls on the 29th, 30th or 31st, later bills fall on the 28th¹.
• You pay in advance, and there is no minimum commitment³.
• OnBuy gives 30 days’ notice before it changes subscriptions or sales fees³.

On 8 November 2026, the sell page still showed an offer of 12 months free for sellers who paid for their first month by 31 July 2026¹¹¹; ask OnBuy whether any offer applies now.

The catalogue model

Listings on OnBuy sit on shared Product Pages³. The seller terms define a Product Page as the product-specific page “where Sellers can create a Listing”, and a Listing as “the Seller’s posting against Product for sale on the OnBuy Marketplaces”³. You can add your Listing to a Product Page that already exists, or create a new Product Page³. Editing a page that already exists means sending OnBuy a request, which it can refuse³.

That is why barcodes matter. OnBuy expects GTINs for most products and sends sellers to GS1 for them¹. If you own a UK or EU trademark, you can apply to be exempt¹.

The seller terms add some limits³:

• The most a listing can cost is £30,000, or the equivalent, with taxes and delivery included³.
• If your listing volume is excessive, OnBuy can require reductions within 48 hours and can cap how much you sell³.
• OnBuy’s Prohibited Products Policy, linked from the sell page, also applies³¹.
• Subscribers choose where to sell: UK sales, which include the OnCommerce Network, other European countries, or both³.

With OnCommerce’s central catalogue, an edit to price, stock, listing details or images applies everywhere the product is live, ChannelX reported⁷. Brand-new products created through the API stay unpublished until the OnCommerce support team has reviewed them and switched on live product creation for your account⁵.

invtri’s OnBuy channel works with OnBuy UK: it lists your products and keeps stock and price up to date.

Dispatch, tracking and fulfilment partners

Delivery timeframes you offer can run from 1 to 30 days, and your Handling Time, the time you take to process an order, can be up to 10 days³. An order must be dispatched within 24 hours, unless you have set a longer Handling Time, or by the dispatch date shown when it was placed, whichever is later³. Priority Orders made before your cut-off time go out on the same day³. ChannelX reported in July 2026 that a new Priority Service would launch in the fourth quarter of 2026¹¹.

You can refuse an order, though rejecting orders “may affect the Seller’s performance metrics”³. Orders still not marked as dispatched after 30 days are cancelled and refunded automatically³.

OnBuy does not make tracking compulsory, but the terms leave the risk of untracked parcels with you³. If one arrives late or cannot be proven delivered, the customer chooses between a refund and a replacement³. Chargebacks over delivery also fall on you unless you can prove delivery to the address the customer gave³.

Neither the seller terms nor the sell page sets out a dropshipping policy³¹. Under the terms, fulfilment stays your responsibility, including “sourcing, storing, selling and delivering all the Products in an Order”³. If you use a third party to fulfil an order, you must pick a non-branded packaging option whenever one is available³.

Returns and refunds

OnBuy’s customer terms set a 30-day window⁴. Buyers can cancel a non-faulty order within 30 days of receiving it, telling you through OnBuy, and a faulty product earns a full refund within 30 days of receipt⁴.

Your side of a return⁴:

• Returns come back to you, at a returns address in the country of delivery⁴.
• The refund is due within 14 days of the goods reaching you, or of the customer showing evidence of return, if sooner⁴.
• It covers the product price and any standard postage, paid back by the customer’s original payment method⁴.
• Return postage is paid by the customer for non-faulty goods and by you for faulty or not-as-described goods⁴.
• A customer left two days without your reply can escalate to OnBuy Customer Care⁴.

The return right does not cover items made to the customer’s specification or personalised, perishable products such as food, drink and fresh flowers, opened sealed audio, video or software, downloads once started, or opened hygiene items⁴.

The sale itself is a contract between the customer and you¹². Refunds are processed in the Seller Control Panel³. If you run OnBuy through invtri, you can also refund and cancel OnBuy orders from invtri: see Refunds, cancellations and returns.

Performance standards

OnBuy rates every seller on Performance Metrics, defined as “Ratings applied to each Seller based upon performance on the OnBuy Marketplaces”³. The terms attach no figures to them, so ask OnBuy which levels it applies³. Missing the metrics two months running lets OnBuy restrict your access and terminate on 30 days’ notice³.

The terms are more precise about day-to-day conduct³:

• Answer customers and OnBuy within 48 hours³.
• Respond on the same day to a cancellation request linked to fraud³.
• Check the Seller Control Panel every day for new orders³.
• Keep dispatch prompt and cancellations and refunds low: OnBuy can restrict accounts that do not, though it sets no percentage³.

The OnBuy API, now called OnCommerce

According to the API documentation, OnCommerce “connects sellers to multiple global markets and retail channels, including OnBuy, easyShop, and Comet (UK)”⁵. The keys and IDs sit on the API page of the Seller Control Panel⁵:

• Live keys for production, and Test keys for building and testing⁵.
• In each set, a consumer key and a secret key, swapped for an access token that goes with every other request⁵.
• Your Seller ID, plus Seller Entity IDs: one for OnCommerce UK and a new one for each location you switch on⁵.

For the UK, the site ID is 2000⁵. Live and Test keys have the same limits: 600 GET requests an hour and 12,000 a day, and 240 POST, PUT or DELETE requests an hour and 4,800 a day⁵. A request over the limit gets HTTP 429, and accounts not yet verified cannot create test orders⁵.

Neither the API documentation nor the fees page mentions any charge for API access⁵². The change log shows new sections on grouped products and variants (19 December 2025) and on stock and price handling (21 January 2026), and support for GPSR product-safety data from 24 July 2026⁵.

To connect OnBuy to invtri with your own keys, follow Connect OnBuy to invtri.

Questions to weigh before you apply

From the review bar at sign-up to the returns address, OnBuy’s published rules raise these questions for your business:

• Can you show 50 reviews from the last 12 months, with 90% or more rated 4/5 stars¹?
• Do your products have GS1 barcodes, or do you hold a UK or EU trademark that could qualify for an exemption¹?
• After your category’s sales fee, charged on the price including delivery, plus VAT where applicable, what margin is left²?
• What will a Partner or Professional package cost you, given that the sell page shows no prices¹?
• Can you dispatch within 24 hours, or set a Handling Time of up to 10 days that suits your stock³?
• Can you take returns at a UK address and refund within 14 days of each return arriving⁴?
• Is OnBuy UK enough, or do you also want OnBuy’s other selling locations, each with its own inventory¹?

Timeline of recent changes

• 27 June 2025: ChannelX reported that OnBuy Europe, then in beta, had reached a £20m run rate after 5 months¹³.
• 19 January 2026: last modification of OnBuy’s fees page, which lists the 15.00% standard fee².
• 5 February 2026: ChannelX’s interview with Cas Paton, OnBuy’s founder and CEO, said OnBuy had launched around 20 new country sites across Europe in the past year, with a US site coming soon⁸.
• 26 March 2026: Retail Technology Innovation Hub reported that OnBuy was launching eight new markets: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Switzerland⁶.
• 22 June 2026: ChannelX reported the launch of OnCommerce, one account and catalogue, with trading on OnBuy first and easyShop and Comet to follow later in 2026⁷.
• 23 July 2026: ChannelX set out OnBuy’s plans: Comet rebuilt for consumer electronics, a Priority Service, retail media, a mobile app for the Christmas peak and a US marketplace in 2027¹¹.
• 13 October 2026: easyShop.com opened across 21 European countries, powered and operated by OnCommerce, ChannelX reported, describing Comet as soon to launch¹⁴.