The Backdrop: New Competition from China

Chinese platforms are visibly gaining ground in Europe – that’s what our own analysis of the EU Transparency Reports shows. Particularly striking: in Poland, Amazon’s user penetration stands at just 9.8 percent, while Temu already reaches 36.2 percent and AliExpress as much as 40.2 percent. In Spain and Italy too, AliExpress and Shein are long past being minor players. Amazon itself acknowledged the pressure in December 2025: the company cut seller fees for European sellers in low-cost fashion and accessories categories – a notable move openly attributed to competition from Temu and Shein.

Against this backdrop, it’s worth taking a closer look at the raw numbers: Amazon invested more than €60 billion in Europe in 2025 alone, according to its own figures – the highest annual sum in the company’s history on the continent. And that doesn’t look like a one-off: adding up only the country commitments already put a figure on for the coming years – the UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium – comes to a rough total of around €68 to 70 billion. That’s a cautious approximation across slightly different time frames, not an official Amazon total, but it shows the scale at which Amazon continues to entrench itself across Europe.

The most important individual investments in detail follow below:

Benelux vs. bol

In the Netherlands and Belgium, bol holds the market leadership – the only larger Western European markets where that’s still the case. Amazon is responding with a combined €2.4 billion-plus for the coming years: more than €1.4 billion for the Netherlands, more than €1 billion for Belgium.

The investments target precisely the areas where bol holds its edge: faster delivery, a broader product range, improved AI tools for sellers, and a better customer experience. In Belgium, part of the money also goes toward expanding same-day delivery. Amazon itself never names bol directly as the target – publicly, it always speaks of “investments in customers and selling partners.”

Poland vs. Allegro

Allegro holds 38.8 percent of Polish retail e-commerce, according to Euromonitor, while Amazon manages only 3.9 percent. Amazon’s answer: more than €5 billion for the years 2026 to 2028 – on top of the more than €10 billion already invested in the country since 2012.

A central building block is a new robotic fulfillment centre in Lower Silesia. Unlike in Benelux, Amazon is additionally expanding its Prime offering in Poland, including locally produced Prime Video content – a tool that directly targets Allegro’s strong loyalty and entertainment ecosystem.

A second effect extends beyond the Polish market itself: Poland also serves as a central logistics hub for Amazon across Central Europe. A strong fulfilment network there is likely to improve not just Amazon’s position against Allegro, but also delivery capability into neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic or Slovakia.

Germany: The Quiet Expansion of a Secured Market

Notably, unlike the UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany – Amazon’s largest market in continental Europe – has received no new, figured billion-euro commitment in the past 12 to 18 months. Germany country manager Rocco Bräuniger declined to commit to a specific figure for 2025/26 in autumn 2025, though he spoke of continued “very, very strong” investment.

The last known figure is a retrospective one, not a forward pledge: in 2024, Amazon invested around €14 billion in Germany, according to its own figures – roughly €2 billion more than in 2023. Cumulatively since 2010, the total stands at around €90 billion.

The expansion is visible more at individual sites than in big headlines. The most recent example: Pforzheim. There, Amazon is converting its logistics centre for more than €300 million – from a warehouse for medium-sized items into a site for small and medium-sized products with capacity for around 20 million items. New sites in Horn-Bad Meinberg, Erfurt and Dummerstorf were also added in 2024; Bietigheim, Könnern and Rohr are announced for 2025/26.

Marketplace Universe Insight: Not every billion-euro figure Amazon announces for Europe concerns the marketplace business. Spain illustrates this clearly: the €33.7 billion announced in March 2026 flows entirely into cloud and AI infrastructure, according to Amazon – with no connection to the retail business at all. Placing that sum alongside the countries where Amazon is fighting for market share means comparing two entirely different business areas.

Amazon, the Innovation Engine

The possibly most consequential building block of recent months is a new investment of more than €10 billion in a new robotics generation for the European fulfilment network, announced by Amazon in June 2026. Three technologies are at the centre of it:

Proteus: Amazon’s autonomous transport robot. It moves heavy carts and loads independently through the warehouse. What’s new is that the current generation can now be deployed anywhere goods need to be moved, not just in loading areas. Employees will also be able to direct it using plain spoken language rather than technical commands.

Vulcan: Amazon’s first robot with a sense of touch. This matters technically because precisely gripping individual, differently shaped items – without damaging them – has long been one of the biggest hurdles for warehouse robotics. Vulcan is designed to close exactly that gap.

STARK: A powerful transfer robot. First piloted in Barcelona, it handles moving entire boxes from the conveyor belt onto transport carts. By 2027, the system is set to be rolled out to 15 sites across Europe.

For fulfilment centres, this translates concretely into: faster order processing, fewer picking errors, and more capacity without each additional item requiring proportionally more staff. Amazon itself emphasises that employees can focus more on inventory management and quality control instead of physically demanding routine work.

The investment is accompanied by two further commitments: 25,000 new jobs in European fulfilment over the coming years, and a training fund worth $1 billion (around €860 million) through 2030, supporting qualifications in logistics, cybersecurity and software development, among other areas.

Conclusion

What these numbers show overall: despite growing competition from Temu, Shein and other Chinese platforms, Amazon remains by far the largest driver of infrastructure and innovation in European e-commerce. Rather than reacting to the new competition, Amazon is above all expanding what has long been its greatest strength: a logistics and technology edge that’s hard to match with capital alone – whether by Chinese platforms or by local market leaders like bol or Allegro.

Key Learnings

• Amazon invested more than €60 billion in Europe in 2025, according to its own figures – a record level
• Further committed country pledges (UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium) add up to roughly €68 to 70 billion for the coming years
• Two cases can be read as targeted catch-up efforts: Benelux against bol and Poland against Allegro
• Poland has both Amazon’s lowest penetration in Europe (9.8%) and one of the largest Temu and AliExpress shares
• Germany received no new billion-euro commitment recently – the expansion shows up more at individual sites
• Spain’s €33.7 billion is pure cloud/AI infrastructure, unrelated to the retail business
• The new €10 billion robotics generation (Proteus, Vulcan, STARK) is set to roll out to 15 sites by 2027 and, according to Amazon, will create 25,000 new jobs – an efficiency leap that’s hard to match with capital alone

Enjoyed this article? The Marketplace Universe Weekly is our free newsletter – every Monday, the latest marketplace news, platform updates, our newest posts, and the insights that matter, delivered straight to your inbox. So you never miss a thing. Subscribe here: https://marketplace-universe.com/newsletter/

Der Beitrag Amazon’s Billion-Euro Game in Europe: The Numbers Behind the Headlines erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

EU Commission targets cheap Chinese imports
The European Commission is preparing new legislation to close compliance gaps for imports via e-commerce platforms, according to media reports. It includes liability for marketplaces, a new market surveillance fee and centralised enforcement. The draft doesn’t explicitly name China, but clearly targets platforms like Temu and Shein. Find out more on Euronews 

More News

TikTok Shop opens trade between EU and UK
Sellers from eight EU countries – including Germany, France, Italy and Spain – will be able to reach British customers via TikTok Shop from 21 September. The reverse will also be true, with UK sellers able to sell into continental Europe. One catch: there’s no TikTok fulfilment yet for UK orders. So sellers have to organise shipping and customer service themselves (“Ship by Seller”). Read more on Innels  

Ebay centralises parcel fee negotiations for sellers
Ebay is launching “Managed Shipping”, a new logistics service for private sellers and small merchants. Thin means the marketplace negotiates shipping fees centrally with carriers and collects them directly from buyers. Sellers simply receive a label with a QR code after the sale and drop the parcel off at a parcel shop – no need to navigate country-specific shipping rules. See more on Handelsblatt  

Bol widens lead over Amazon in the Netherlands
Bol has further widened its lead as the Netherlands’ largest online retailer, according to a new ECDB ranking. With 12 percent growth versus just 2.7 percent for Amazon.nl, bol is now roughly 75 percent ahead of its US rival – up from 61 percent in 2024. AliExpress climbed to third place for the first time and continues gaining market share. Get more details on Ecommerce News 

Lululemon launches Zalando-exclusive collection in Europe
Lululemon is launching a 55-piece collection exclusively via Zalando – which it calls its “biggest retail partner across Europe.” The campaign runs in core markets like Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as Poland and Austria, where Lululemon only launched this week. See the full story on Fashion Network 

Allegro tests delivery service for bulky goods
Allegro is testing “Allegro XL”, a new delivery service for large and heavy products. Via Allegro Smart!, customers can add extras like delivery, unpacking, assembly and old-appliance pickup. The pilot starts in the electronics and consumer-electronics/appliances categories, before expanding to categories like home & garden and sports. Find out more on Allegro

Big Money News

Amazon places first-ever bond in British pounds
Amazon has tapped the pound bond market for the first time, raising £4.25 billion across four tranches with maturities between three and 19 years. The heavily oversubscribed issuance shows how readily investors continue to entrust the company with billions. Money likely to flow substantially into cloud and AI infrastructure, currently the industry’s biggest cost driver. Read more on Retail News 

Don’t want to miss any news? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Universe News 14.09.2026 – Brussels moves against Shemu, and bol pulls ahead of Amazon erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

One Store Opens, Another Gets Shut Down

On November 5, 2025, Shein opened its first permanent store worldwide inside the Parisian department store BHV – accompanied by protesters outside the door. The same day, France’s Ministry of Economy blocked access to the Shein platform. The trigger: childlike sex dolls, along with banned weapons and medication, found on the third-party marketplace. This juxtaposition – expansion on one side, regulation on the other – runs through the entire year. A good moment, then, to pin down where France was genuinely ahead of the curve – and where its go-it-alone approach hit its limits.

Fourteen Months, Three Waves of Fines, One Court Case in Two Acts

That’s how France’s campaign against Shein has unfolded between July 2025 and September 2026 (see timeline graphic). The rhythm stands out: each wave of fines is followed by a new level of escalation – from consumer protection to data protection to criminal law, triggered by the discovery of the sex dolls in October 2025. The attempt to suspend the platform over this dragged on through two court instances and four months – and ended in defeat for the state both times.

In total, French fines against Shein now add up to more than €210 million – a scale with no real European counterpart: Italy’s competition authority AGCM imposed a greenwashing fine of just one million euros in August 2025, explicitly citing the French precedent.

Where France Deliberately Exploits Gaps in EU Law

What stands out about France isn’t just toughness. It’s how the country operates: in two instances, the state deliberately exploits gaps in EU law – something other member states rarely do.

The first case concerns the €150 million fine from France’s data protection authority, the CNIL. Under the EU’s GDPR, the one-stop-shop principle applies: only the data protection authority of a company’s EU home country may impose cross-border sanctions. In Shein’s case, that’s Ireland. Yet the CNIL based its decision on Article 82 of French data protection law, which implements the EU’s ePrivacy Directive. That directive has no one-stop-shop mechanism – any national authority can act independently. The CNIL had already successfully defended this approach against Google and Amazon in 2020 before France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État. The Shein case follows a well-established playbook.

The second case concerns the suspension order. Shein has been designated a “Very Large Online Platform” under the Digital Services Act by the EU Commission since April 2024 – meaning oversight of systemic risks is supposed to lie exclusively with the Commission. France, however, based its lawsuit on Article 6-3 of the national digital law LCEN, which allows for swift injunctions to prevent harm. The state’s legal representative accordingly framed the claim in court with deliberate restraint. The goal wasn’t to replace the European Commission, only to prevent harm.

Marketplace Universe Insight: Legal experts classify this balancing act as a borderline case, seeing it as evidence that national law reaches its limits once systemic platform risks are at stake. Notably, the government itself admitted after its defeat before the Cour d’appel in March 2026 that the legal framework needs to evolve at both the national and European level – an unusually open acknowledgment of its own limits.

The Small-Parcel Tax: From Failed Go-It-Alone Effort to EU-Wide Blueprint

Not every measure relied on such legal gaps: on March 1, 2026, France introduced a national tax of two euros per item on parcels under €150 in value, expecting annual revenue of around €400 million. The problem: Shein and comparable platforms simply cleared their shipments through customs in other EU countries and trucked them into France afterward. According to the director general of the French customs authority, this evasion affected around 90 percent of shipments that were technically liable for the tax. In the end, only about €2.3 million came in per month, less than seven percent of the expected sum.

Since July 1, 2026, a uniform EU-wide customs duty of three euros per product category has applied, binding across all 27 member states – France’s national tax was suspended at the same time. France’s tax mainly added momentum to the implementation of the EU’s existing plans – alongside Italy and Romania, which had also introduced national fees ahead of the EU rule.

Marketplace Universe Insight: In fact, it wasn’t the success of the French tax that brought about the EU solution, but its visible failure: it supplied the argument for why EU-wide solutions are needed in such cases.

What Comes Next – And Where the EU Is Unlikely to Follow

On June 29, 2026, the French parliament passed the law to reduce the environmental impact of the textile industry. It specifically targets “ultra-fast-fashion” providers like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress, while exempting established chains like Zara or H&M. Since September 1, 2026, a tiered levy has applied. From €0.50 for underwear to €12 for coats this year, rising to €19.50 by 2030, capped at 50 percent of the net price. A separate, not yet finalized EU-wide handling fee is additionally slated for November 2026.

While the customs reform was an EU project all along, one where France mainly pushed for speed, the fast-fashion law tells a different story. International media have called it a first among major European states, but there’s no EU-wide equivalent so far. Quite the opposite – the Commission scrutinized the proposal critically for compatibility with EU law. Here, France remains on its own for now, with no sign of the EU following suit.

Does Any of This Actually Work?

An analysis by the French cashback app Joko, based on bank transaction data from 1.5 million users in France, shows a 50 percent drop in purchase volume at Temu between June and July 2026 – but only 15 percent at Shein. Joko attributes this to a warehouse Shein had already opened in Poland by late 2025, which may have reduced its tax exposure. Even though these figures should be treated with caution, France’s Ministry of Economy reported, based on its own customs data, a 30 to 40 percent drop in Chinese small parcels overall – confirming the broad trend.

Conclusion

What can be cautiously concluded from this: regulation and legal action can change things – but operators like Shein are good at finding loopholes and evading restrictions. It’s therefore still unclear whether this will lead to genuine structural shifts, and ultimately to a change in consumer behavior.

That political and public pushback can have an effect showed itself in France beyond regulation proper, too. After months of criticism over its environmental footprint and labor practices, the department store BHV announced in June 2026 that it was ending its partnership with Shein – the new management called the collaboration a “strategic mistake.” The store is expected to close by Christmas 2026.

Key Learnings

• France’s sharpest weapon is legal precision, not toughness. Both the CNIL fine (ePrivacy instead of GDPR) and the suspension order (LCEN instead of DSA) exploit structural loopholes that other member states don’t tap into in the same way.
• With more than €210 million in fines, France stands without a real European counterpart. Italy’s only comparable fine explicitly followed the French example.
• A purely national go-it-alone effort can structurally fail within the single market. The small-parcel tax was evaded 90 percent of the time before it could take effect.
• That very failure supplied the argument for an EU-wide solution that can’t be evaded. France claims to have played a driving role, but wasn’t the only one pushing for it.
• Not every instance of France being a pioneer finds an EU successor: on the fast-fashion law, France remains alone for now.

Enjoyed this article? The Marketplace Universe Weekly is our free newsletter – every Monday, the latest marketplace news, platform updates, our newest posts, and the insights that matter, delivered straight to your inbox. So you never miss a thing. Subscribe here: https://marketplace-universe.com/newsletter/

Der Beitrag France’s Campaign Against Shein: Pioneer, Blueprint, or Go-It-Alone? erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

The Hidden Infrastructure for 35+ of the Biggest Retailers in Europe

The marketplace structure of the French e-commerce service Provider Mirakl – and it’s associated markeptlace onboarding tool Mirakl Connect – has been growing steadily since its foundation in 2012 in Paris. For the most part, that growth happened behind the scenes: New Mirakl-based marketplaces popped up all over Europe over the last years. But it used to be a closed system: the technology behind it powered Mirakl marketplaces only, and Mirakl Connect granted access to these marketplaces only. That’s changing now. We heard the details directly at the Mirakl Summit in April: Mirakl Connect is opening up to channels that aren’t Mirakl-based at all. Amazon and Walmart are already live; Zalando, About You, Kaufland, Cdiscount and TikTok Shop are reportedly next.

It’s a good moment to look at the structure behind these news and ask: How many Mirakl marketplaces are there actually, and how much of Europe’s retail landscape do they cover? The answer is bigger than most people selling across Europe realise: Mirakl now runs a plethora of marketplaces across several countries and almost every category – and many of Europe’s most relevant marketplaces are already Mirakl-based.

Time to take stock.

How Many Mirakl Marketplaces Actually Exist

Globally, Mirakl says it powers more than 450 marketplace and dropship programmes, with over 100,000 active sellers and roughly 150 million SKUs across the system. Europe is where the largest concentration sits, and the growth curve is fairly recent: from roughly 150 European operators in 2020, the ecosystem has expanded across France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, the Nordics, Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal. Today, the network includes European marketplace champions such as Decathlon, B&Q, Mediamarkt Saturn or Leroy Merlin.

The market keeps moving fast. According to Mirakl’s own 2026 Seller Report, marketplaces grew 4.5 times faster than traditional e-commerce last year, generating $14.6 billion in GMV on Mirakl platforms alone — up 31% year over year. The network reaches far beyond any single vertical: fashion and department stores, but also electronics, DIY, beauty, pet supplies, sporting goods and general merchandise.

Seven Categories, 32 Top Marketplaces: The Mirakl Marketplace Map

From department-store generalists to sporting-goods specialists, Mirakl marketplaces now cover nearly every major retail category in Europe.

Generalists

Fashion & Shoes

Electronics

Home & Living

DIY & Garden

Beauty & Care

Hobby & Leisure (Sport)

Marketplace Universe Insight: What’s just as notable is who is missing from this table. Amazon, eBay, Zalando, About You, OTTO, Allegro, bol and Kaufland are not part of the Mirakl network — each runs its own separately built marketplace technology. Until now, that meant two parallel marketplace worlds in Europe, each requiring its own separate seller integration. But that separation is starting to blur.

Mirakl Connect now Reaches Beyond Its Own Network

Until recently, sellers needing both a Mirakl marketplace like Douglas or B&Q and a non-Mirakl one like Amazon or Zalando had to run separate integrations, with two different data models, two different order flows, two different support relationships. But due to a major change in the strategy for Mirakl Connect, this is changing.

Amazon and Walmart being added as reachable channels inside Mirakl Connect changes that calculation, and Zalando, About You, Kaufland, Cdiscount and TikTok Shop are reportedly being prepared to follow. None of these operators run on Mirakl’s backend; what’s being added is a connector. For a seller, the practical effect is the same either way: one catalogue, one stock feed, one order inbox, reaching both the Mirakl-native world and the marketplaces that used to sit entirely outside it.

How to use the Mirakl marketplace Network for your Products

There are three broad routes, and which one makes sense depends on how many channels a brand is managing – and how their service provider setup looks like.

Direct integration

Apply to each marketplace individually, building the required product feed to its specific data model, and managing orders through its own seller portal. It’s the cheapest route for a single channel and the slowest one to scale — every additional marketplace brings its own taxonomy, attribute rules and content standards, and a brand running five or six marketplaces this way is effectively maintaining five or six separate operations.

Middleware and feed-management tools

They sit between a brand’s own systems and the individual marketplaces, translating one central catalogue into each channel’s required format. This is the most common route for brands already selling on a mix of Mirakl and non-Mirakl marketplaces, since the middleware layer doesn’t care which backend a given marketplace runs on. Several middleware providers have already created their own Mirakl API which makes connecting to more Mirakl marketplaces within the middleware’s network easier.

Mirakl Connect

The option that stays inside Mirakl’s own ecosystem end to end: a single seller account that reaches the network of Mirakl marketplaces plus, increasingly, the non-Mirakl channels described above, with AI-assisted catalogue matching built in rather than bolted on. Pricing is published and tiered — a Growth plan at $699 per month covers up to $50,000 in monthly GMV and 10,000 stored products; a Pro plan at $2,299 per month raises that to $200,000 GMV and 20,000 products; above that, Enterprise pricing is negotiated individually. All three tiers include unlimited channel connections, order management and AI-assisted product creation, with add-ons such as AI image optimisation priced separately.

Mirakl frames the underlying logic simply: centralise before you diversify. Whether that centralisation happens through a PIM, a middleware layer or a platform like Mirakl Connect, the principle is the same — one source of truth for catalogue, pricing and stock, pushed outward in whatever format each channel requires.

Why This Looks Less Like a Network Now and More Like an Operating System

Put those two things together — 30-plus major Mirakl marketplaces already reaching most of Europe’s key retail categories, plus a Connect layer being built to reach beyond that network entirely — and the current opening starts to look less like a feature update and more like a repositioning. By adding Amazon and Walmart now, and reportedly Zalando, About You, Kaufland, Cdiscount and TikTok Shop next, Mirakl isn’t just growing its own network of marketplaces anymore. It’s turning Connect into a single interface which spans both the Mirakl-powered world and the marketplaces that were previously entirely outside it.

Key Learnings

• The combination of network reach and a widening Connect layer is what turns Mirakl from a marketplace technology vendor into a genuine multichannel hub.
• More than 30 of Europe’s most relevant retail marketplaces — across generalists, fashion, electronics, home, DIY, beauty and sport — are Mirakl marketplaces.
• Mirakl Connect is now opening up to non-Mirakl players — Amazon and Walmart are live, with Zalando, About You, Kaufland, Cdiscount and TikTok Shop reportedly next.
• Sellers have three practical routes onto these marketplaces: direct integration, middleware/feed-management tools, or Mirakl Connect itself.
• Centralising catalogue and stock data before adding channels is the consistent pattern behind brands that scale across marketplaces successfully — the technology removes friction, not the need for a dedicated team.

Mirakl, founded in Paris in 2012 and now headquartered in Boston and Paris, builds the marketplace and multichannel-selling technology behind the retailers mapped above. More at mirakl.com.

Der Beitrag Mirakl Marketplaces in Europe erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Shein: the IPO hype is nowhere to be found
A week after its shaky Hong Kong debut, Shein‘s stock is still trading around 17.5% below its offer price – at a valuation of $26.5 billion, barely a quarter of its 2022 peak. That raises the defining question early: can Shein grow when tariff and customs changes in the US and Europe are attacking the very pricing model that fueled its rise in the first place? Read more CNBC and Reuters (Background) 

More News

EU leaves JD’s MediaMarktSaturn takeover undecided
Brussels must rule by October 2 on whether JD.com‘s takeover of Ceconomy, MediaMarktSaturn‘s parent, gets approved, conditioned, or blocked, with the European Commission investigating whether Chinese state subsidies shaped the bid. The deal reaches further than German electronics retail alone: through Ceconomy’s stake in Fnac Darty, JD could become the second-largest electronics e-tailer in several European markets, per ECDB. Find out more on Exciting Commerce (EU) and ECDB (Background) 

EU customs rules hit cross-border sellers ahead of Q4
The EU’s new customs rules are hitting British retailers hard: alongside the €3 fee per product category, sellers face additional costs from incorrect tariff classifications, administrative overhead, and inefficient returns. From October and November, the rules tighten further with IOSS monitoring and mandatory product identifiers – just as retailers prepare for the peak season. See more on ChannelX  

eBay tightens non-payment rules
eBay now requires payment within four calendar days across Europe, with repeated non-payment triggering purchase limits or account restrictions. At the same time, sellers can send targeted best offers to interested buyers – Shop subscribers can even automate them by category or price range. Read more on Onlinehändler News 

LPP Group launches Sinsay marketplace
Poland’s LPP Group is opening its budget fashion brand Sinsay to external trading partners for the first time, turning it into a marketplace. The goal is to expand the assortment with complementary categories, growing the platform to over 100,000 products by 2027. Sinsay has so far focused on affordable fashion for the whole family and is one of LPP’s fastest-growing revenue drivers. Get more details on LPP 

CDON expands retail media within its own marketplace ecosystem
Nordic marketplace CDON Group is now integrating sponsored product advertising directly into its own platform. Instead of retrofitting a generic ad system with marketplace features, CDON opted for infrastructure built from the ground up for marketplaces, plugging directly into shoppers’ real-time purchase signals. Read more on Business Wire 

Momentum News

Live shopping catches on in the US
The U.S. live shopping market is set to reach nearly $20 billion in sales in 2026, up 35% year over year. TikTok Shop reports that live shopping sales more than doubled in the first half of 2026 versus the same period last year, with sessions up over 60% and live hours up more than 80%. Whatnot, now valued at $20 billion, generated $8 billion in sales in 2025 – the majority of which, by its own account, came from the U.S.See th full story on CNBC 

Don’t want to miss any news? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Universe News 07.09. 2026 – Shein slides post-IPO, and Amazon tightens the Pan-EU FBA erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Who is where now? The personnel carousel of the Marketplace Universe has been moving merrily along in August. We help you keep up with the Movers & Shakers of our dynamic industry.

Our Movers & Shakers Top picks in AUGUST

Jan Bechler, Tim Nedden and Björn Sjut will step down from the management team in spring 2027, remaining on as founding partners and shareholders.Sabine Juenger will become Europe CEO of Front Row (formerly Finc3) as of January 1, 2027.

Björn Seitner got promoted at Breuninger and became Head of Marketplaces.

Vanessa Smickt was promoted to Director Digital Business at Marc O’Polo.

Christine Alber rose the ranks to Senior Marketplace Manager at Kapten & Son.

Tim Meiswinkel steps up to Manager Marketplaces at Tom Tailor, capping nine years with the company.

More Movers & Shakers in AUGUSt

Eimante Baksiene joined Bison Commerce as Head of Merchandise, previously Head of E-Commerce at Royal Denta.

Ferdinando Berni Canani is now Business Development Manager at Temu, previously Senior Category Manager at AliExpress.

Manuela Bohm left Amazon to bring her expertise to Retarus as Technical Product Manager Business Process Solutions (Cloud-EDI, E-Invoice, IDP).

Congratulations to Chris Cook, promoted to Head of Marketplaces at World of Books.

Lotte Cras was promoted to DTC Lead Benelux & Nordics at PepsiCo, moving up from E-Commerce Manager Benelux.

Renée Donker is now Growth Manager Benelux at Armedangels, previously at Yoek.

And Rene’e Hemmy left Modibodi behind for a new role as Marketplace Trade Manager at Oroton Group.

At Groupe SEB, Patrick Imiela has been promoted to Key Account Manager Otto 3P.

Josephine Marie Klein moves up to Senior Marketplace Manager at Cura Cosmetic Group.

David Mirzaei got promoted to Senior Director Revenue at byrd.

Tim Meiswinkel steps up to Manager Marketplaces at Tom Tailor, capping nine years with the company.

Barbara Mellaro trades Fruugo.com for a new role as Senior Sales Consultant at Temu UK.

Manuel Müller is moving on from Grammer AG to take up a role as Consultant Projekte Omnichannel at Lidl International.

After 17 years at Hansgrohe, Freek Wiesenhaan is heading to Dutch piping manufacturer Orbia as Director BU West Europe.

Jörn Nikolay steps down as Chairman; Vice Chairman Pietro Supino steps in on an interim basis.

Valentina Ockenfels joined Weleda as Digital Key Account Manager E-Commerce from adidas.

Jaqueline (Ickert) Pfeiffer left Gorenje and joined Fakir-Hausgeräte as Head of E-Commerce Europe.

Alberto Sanz de Lama takes over as CEO, succeeding Christoph Tonini, who departs end of December.

Giulia Scarpa moved from Brave Kid to De’Longhi as Marketplace & B2B Expert.

And at Turkish marketplace N11, Ömer Cem Siphanie takes on the role of Baby & Kids Category Supervisor.

Changes at C-level at Swiss Marketplace Group: Alberto Sanz de Lama takes over as CEO, succeeding Christoph Tonini, who departs end of December. Jörn Nikolay steps down as Chairman; Vice Chairman Pietro Supino steps in on an interim basis.

Sabine Wiesmüller, PhD has joined the Founders Foresight Panel as an Advisory Board Member.

Joanna Townsend left Shein and recently joined Skechers as Category Lead.

Well-deserved for Britt Vancampenhoudt, promoted to B2B & Retail Media Manager at INNO.

Did we miss something? Let us know!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Movers & Shakers in August 2026 erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Marketplaces in Italy 2026: A Market Still Waiting for Its Own Champions

Last updated: 07.09.2026

Market Overview

Italy’s e-commerce revenue reached €38.5 billion in 2025, according to ECDB, and is forecast to climb to €41.3 billion in 2026 — a year-over-year growth rate of 6.8%. The online share of total retail continues its steady climb, from 12.2% in 2025 to a projected 12.8% in 2026, part of a longer trajectory that ECDB expects to reach 15.2% by 2030.

Cross-border behaviour remains a defining feature of the market too: of the 15.1% of Italian e-commerce revenue that went to purchases abroad in 2025, an overwhelming 92.5% flowed to Chinese platforms — a concentration far higher than in any other major European market.

No number captures Italy’s marketplace landscape better, however, than Amazon’s own. According to ECDB, Amazon generated €25.02 billion in GMV in Italy in 2025 — a 52% share of the entire Italian e-commerce market, and growing, with GMV up 12.8% year-over-year. That’s not just a European high for Amazon; it’s the highest share Amazon holds in any of Europe’s five largest markets, ahead of Germany (39%), the UK (37%), France (27%) and Spain (20%). More than one euro in every two spent online in Italy goes through Amazon. And Amazon’s dominance is part of a broader concentration trend: the top ten online retailers in Italy now account for 93% of total market share, up sharply from 73% just two years ago in 2023.

What’s Changed? Cracks in the Amazon Wall

Compared to last year, several structural shifts stand out:

New in Fashion: Vinted and Kiabi join Zalando. Farfetch stays in the text only — still active, but weakened under Coupang.layer Shein makes less than one tenth of Amazon’s turnover. So without Amazon, there is no Italian e-commerce, basta.

YOOX’s marketplace era is over. Third-party programme shut down 10 February 2025, after three years. YOOX continues as a 1P off-price retailer only.

Kaufland arrives — placed in Sports. Live since September 2025, ~3,000 sellers, still modest traction. Placed in Sports rather than Electronics or Home & Living, since that’s the thinnest category bench.

TikTok Shop found its category. Live since March 2025, 21,000+ active sellers, strongest in Beauty. Unlike the UK (full generalist), we place it as a Beauty & Care specialist for now.

Refurbed replaces Back Market. Stronger Italian footprint: €190M+ cumulative GMV, 500,000+ products sold.

Unieuro moved to watchlist. Marketplace still not launched as of mid-2026, despite being “imminent” in last year’s edition.

TradeInn is out. Turns out to be a 1P retailer bundling own vertical brands (Bikeinn, Runnerinn), not an open marketplace.

Redcare replaces PromoFarma. Redcare has real Italian infrastructure (Milan distribution centre, own entity); PromoFarma leans on a Portuguese pharmacy licence.

No more double-listings. ManoMano now only under DIY & Garden, MediaWorld only under Electronics. Conforama and Auto-doc fill the resulting gaps.

The 2026 Quadrant in Detail

Generalists

• Amazon — still the undisputed centre of gravity of Italian e-commerce, dominant across virtually every category.
• Shein — the clear number two among generalists, its Fashion origins now firmly behind it.
• eBay — steady presence, particularly strong in cross-category and re-commerce behaviour.
• AliExpress — the reference point for price-conscious cross-border buyers.
• Temu — rapid penetration growth since 2023, part of the broader Chinese-platform dominance visible in Italy’s cross-border spending data.

Specialists by Category

Fashion & Shoes: Zalando leads, with Vinted representing the country’s thriving C2C fashion resale market and Kiabi bringing family-fashion retail-marketplace relevance.

Electronics: MediaWorld has emerged as Italy’s leading retailer-marketplace in the category since its Mirakl-powered launch in July 2024, backed by a €100 million digital investment. ePrice remains the historic Italian name in the space. Refurbed leads the recommerce segment.

Home & Living: Leroy Merlin and Maisons du Monde continue to anchor the category, joined by Conforama under its post-2024 Bricofer ownership. A note of caution on Maisons du Monde: while its Italian marketplace activity is reportedly still growing, the French parent company is fighting to avoid insolvency, having posted a €406 million net loss in 2025 and awaiting shareholder approval on a rescue financing package by 15 September 2026. Worth watching closely into next year.

DIY & Garden: ManoMano and Leroy Merlin remain the category’s backbone, joined by Auto-doc as an interesting cross-over model bridging automotive parts and DIY.

Sports: Decathlon remains the clear category leader. Zalando covers much of the sports-fashion overlap. Kaufland enters as an early-stage challenger — one to watch rather than one that has already arrived.

Beauty & Care: Douglas continues to anchor the category with its Southern European marketplace operations. Redcare brings pharmacy and parapharmacy relevance backed by real Italian infrastructure. TikTok Shop rounds out the category as its fastest-growing platform.

Market Analysis: Marketplace Universe Opinion

Italy’s marketplace story in 2026 isn’t about local platforms rising to challenge Amazon. That still hasn’t happened. What’s changed is where the challenge is coming from — and it isn’t from Italy.

This year’s biggest new entrant, Kaufland, is a German retail group extending existing European infrastructure, not a local player scaling up. Meanwhile, Italy’s most visible homegrown marketplace, YOOX, shut its third-party programme down entirely. And unlike France, where grocery giants like Carrefour and E.Leclerc run open Mirakl marketplaces, Italy’s biggest food retailers — Conad, Coop, Esselunga, Selex — still don’t open their e-commerce to outside sellers at all.

The pattern: foreign supply keeps diversifying (Kaufland, TikTok Shop, Chinese platforms), while domestic marketplace infrastructure stays flat. For brands and sellers, the takeaway is unchanged — Amazon is still the mandatory starting point, and the real decision is which of the growing pool of foreign-owned specialists deserve the next investment.

Want to add your voice?

Did we miss an emerging player, or see something differently? Help us sharpen the Quadrant for 2027!

Do you have anything to add to our country quadrant for Italy? Let us know: info@marketplace-uni.com 

Interested in a different country or a specific product category? Check out all our quadrants here: https://marketplace-universe.com/insights/quadrants/

Der Beitrag Marketplace Country Quadrant Italy 2026 erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

PDD misses estimates, Temu responds with local infrastructure
PDD Holdings, parent company of Pinduoduo and Temu, missed market expectations in the second quarter: revenue rose 8% to $15.7bn but fell short of the analyst estimate of around $16.26bn. Net income fell 12% to around $3.80bn, weighed down by intensifying competition in China as well as US tariffs, the loss of duty-free treatment, and new EU small-parcel fees. In response, Temu is expanding its local fulfillment infrastructure and onboarding more local merchants to adapt to the new EU regulation. See the full story on Reuters and ChannelX

More News

Marks & Spencer and Zalando scale up partnership
Marks & Spencer is extending its logistics partnership with ZEOS, Zalando’s B2B fulfillment division, to 22 European markets – newly including France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. ZEOS handles order fulfillment through its own distribution network, with M&S expecting shorter delivery times and up to 58% lower delivery costs as a result. See more on Yahoo Finance

Amazon makes discounts more transparent
Amazon is rolling out a “Price History” button in Germany: via its AI assistant Rufus, shoppers can check a product’s price trend over up to a year. This exposes deals based on outdated list prices and puts sellers under greater pressure around promotions. Read more on Futurezone 

Chronext isn’t insolvent after all
Swiss-based luxury watch retailer Chronext, founded in 2013, filed for bankruptcy this week – but only for its Swiss holding structure, Chronext AG and Chronext Group AG. The operating business is unaffected and continues to run unchanged through Chronext GmbH in Cologne. Find out more on Tagblatt 

Bonprix expands partner business
Otto subsidiary Bonprix is now also selling its fashion via Deichmann, expanding its network of external sales channels alongside Otto and About You. For Bonprix, this means additional reach and access to new customer groups. See more on Retail News

Robot News

Amazon tests fully automated delivery stations
With “Project Tetromino,” Amazon is working on delivery stations where AI and robots also take over sorting and loading packages – initial pilots are planned for as early as 2028 under an internal plan, initially in the US. Amazon stresses this is still an early-stage concept. Get more details on Business Insider 

Don’t want to miss any news? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Universe News 31.08.2026 – PDD misses estimates, and M&S bets on Zalando erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Amazon launches bulk storage for sellers in Europe
Amazon launched its bulk storage program Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD) on August 20 in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK. Sellers can now store larger inventories with Amazon long-term, which then get automatically distributed to FBA warehouses as needed. For brands, this is a tempting cost advantage over running their own multi-country warehouses – just one that increasingly ties their logistics strategy to a single ecosystem. See more on Ecommerce News

More News

Shein eyes significantly lower IPO valuation
Shein is reportedly targeting a valuation of around $25 billion for its planned Hong Kong IPO – well below the $30 to $40 billion previously discussed. Weak growth, new tariffs, and a slide into losses in the first quarter are putting pressure on its low-cost model. Find out more on Handelsblatt

Ikea takes on Vinted and eBay
After trials in Spain and Norway, Ikea is launching its own secondhand platform in the UK this year, where Ikea Family members can buy and sell used furniture directly with each other. This turns Ikea from a manufacturer into an operator of its own secondhand market, keeping products, customers, and transactions within its own ecosystem. See more on ChannelX

Swiss online retail grows sharply in H1
Swiss retail grew 2.6 percent nominally in the first half of 2026, while online retail rose far more sharply, by 8 to 11 percent – driven mainly by leisure, sports, home & living, and consumer electronics. Notably, online fashion sales dropped 16.1 percent, which, against an otherwise stable overall market, points to a shift back toward brick-and-mortar retailers. Read more on Carpathia

JD.com: revenue decline and geopolitical headwinds
JD.com reported its first revenue decline since its 2014 IPO, while net profit rose nearly 15 percent at the same time. The drop is attributed to the expiration of state consumer subsidies. Meanwhile, China is blocking support for the EU’s review of the planned Ceconomy acquisition, a move likely to significantly complicate the process for the European Commission. See the full story on Financial Times (Revenue) and Reuters (Blockage)

Airborne News

Amazon takes off: Prime Air arrives in the UK
Amazon has officially brought its Prime Air drone delivery service to the UK – its first expansion outside the US. In parallel, Amazon plans to expand the service to 500 US cities by the end of 2026, six times more than today, with delivery times of up to 30 minutes. This turns Prime Air from a tech experiment into a serious logistics building block – and the next battle in e-commerce could increasingly be fought over delivery speed rather than price alone. Find out more on ChannelX (UK) and Amazon (USA)

Don’t want to miss any news? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Universe News 24.08.2026 – Amazon’s AWD ties brands closer, and Ikea takes on Vinted and eBay erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Marketplaces in Poland 2026: Allegro’s Fortress, and the Line Forming at the Gate

Poland’s e-commerce market keeps growing — just not quite as fast as last year, and not evenly. According to ECDB, Polish e-commerce revenue reached €28.66 billion in 2025, up 10.9% year-over-year, with growth expected to ease slightly to 8.9% in 2026, taking the market to roughly €31.2 billion. The online share of total retail sits at 6.6% in 2025, essentially flat into 2026 — a reminder that despite the headlines, Poland’s shift online is still a gradual one compared to Western Europe.

Cross-border data underlines the point. 8.9% of Polish e-commerce revenue in 2025 went to purchases made abroad — and of that, 93.7% landed on Chinese stores. AliExpress, Temu and Shein aren’t peripheral players fighting for scraps; they’re the default answer to where Poles shop once they leave the domestic market.

Our freshly updated Marketplace Country Quadrant Poland 2026 reflects this market — but with a sharper edge than in previous years, and a clearer picture of which marketplaces in Poland actually deserve a seat at the table.

What’s Changed? Correcting for Distortion

The 2025 quadrant listed five names in the Generalists box. Looking at the data again, we don’t think that box should read as a genuine peer group at all.

Exits

• Empik drops out of the Generalists box. Not because it lost relevance, but because ranking it alongside Allegro overstated the competitive reality — it moves down into three specialist boxes instead: DIY & Garden and Sports.
• Morele exits DIY & Garden and Sports, remaining only in Electronics, after losing revenue across several categories in 2025.
• eBay exits Electronics. Its role in Polish electronics trade has become marginal.

New Entries

• ERLI enters the Generalists box. ERLI is a fully Polish-owned marketplace and Polish trade press consistently calls it the country’s number two marketplace. Its 2025 GMV of 1.8 billion PLN (+45% in 2025) outsizes Empik Marketplace’s roughly 1 billion PLN. In older versions of this quadrant we had missed out on ERLI, which we have now corrected.
• Media-Expert enters Electronics. Poland’s most important electronics retailer launched its own third-party marketplace in autumn 2025.
• Home&You enters Home & Living. A dedicated interior marketplace running on Mirakl since 2021, and a sharper category fit than the generalist names that used to occupy this box.
• Hebe and Super-Pharm enter Beauty & Care. Both are established drugstore chains running confirmed third-party marketplace models — Hebe since 2022, Super-Pharm since 2024 — and a better fit for this category than the generalist names previously listed here.

Observations

Vinted does not appear in this year’s chart. By ECDB’s estimate, it’s the second-largest fashion platform in Poland by GMV, beaten only by Zalando. It stays out of the visual chart for the same structural reason as last year — our methodology centres on B2C marketplaces with professional seller relevance, and Vinted’s core model remains peer-to-peer resale — but a platform doing this much volume deserves this mention.

Douglas is not in the Beauty & Care box. It has a real offline retail footprint in Poland and runs a Mirakl-powered partner marketplace in several European markets, but we can’t confirm meaningful third-party volume specifically in Poland — so for now it’s a relevant retailer, not a marketplace entry.

The Most Important Marketplaces in Poland: The 2026 Quadrant in Detail

Generalists

• Allegro: Still the undisputed anchor of Polish e-commerce, and still the platform every other name on this list is measured against.
• Amazon: The clearest international generalist presence, though still a distant second to Allegro on home turf.
• AliExpress & Temu: The Chinese pairing that dominates the price-driven end of the market — and the direct beneficiaries of Poland’s outsized appetite for cross-border shopping abroad.
• ERLI: A fully Polish-owned marketplace built entirely on domestic capital, and consistently described in Polish trade press as the country’s number two marketplace. It also explicitly positions itself against Chinese platforms rather than alongside them, with no Chinese sellers on the platform by design.
• Kaufland: Still small next to Allegro, but growing fast and a genuinely easier entry point for Western sellers.

Specialists by Category

• Fashion & Shoes: Zalando leads on brand-driven positioning; Shein anchors the price-driven end; Polish player Modivo and its second retail destination eobuwie.pl fill up the chart.
• Electronics: Morele holds its ground; MediaMarkt remains a solid brand-driven presence; Media-Expert enters fresh off its autumn 2025 marketplace launch.
• Home & Living: Black Red White and Home&You represent the strong local front in this category, challenged by Shein.
• DIY & Garden: Leroy Merlin and Castorama remain the category’s backbone, joined now by Empik.
• Sports: Decathlon and Zalando cover the category’s poles, with Empik’s expanding third-party sports assortment earning it the third spot.
• Beauty & Care: Zalando anchors the category, joined by two specialist drugstore chains-turned-marketplaces: Hebe and Super-Pharm, both a sharper fit for Beauty & Care than the generalist names that previously filled this box. Douglas, despite its retail strength, doesn’t clear the bar on confirmed marketplace volume in Poland.

The Line Is Forming: Who’s Circling Poland

Poland’s Unique Market Dynamics

Poland spent years being treated as a market with strong local roots and limited room for outsiders. That read is now out of date. Within roughly two years, a wave of players — foreign and domestic — have either launched or announced marketplaces here, and the pattern only makes sense as what it is: the fight for the Polish consumer is now fully on.

Already live, all launched in the past 12–24 months:

Kaufland’s marketplace went live in August 2024, Castorama’s followed in January 2025, and MediaMarkt’s in May 2025 — three retailers from three different categories, each converting a closed retail operation into a third-party platform within roughly a year of each other. None of these launches happened in isolation; they’re the leading edge of the same trend the newer arrivals below are now riding. 

Not yet in the chart, but moving fast:

TikTok Shop launched in Poland on 15 June 2026, backed by InPost for logistics and BLIK for payments. It’s too early to say what this does to the category landscape — a few weeks of live data tells us nothing about whether social commerce reallocates Polish spending or just adds a channel on top. We may well be adding TikTok Shop to next year’s Generalists box.

About You launched its own marketplace in Poland in June 2026, opening with roughly 600 brands and 100,000 additional products on aboutyou.pl — Zalando diversifying its Polish exposure across two brands instead of one.

easyShop, the marketplace easyGroup is building with OnBuy, is set to launch across 21 European countries — Poland included — later in 2026. Nothing live yet, but a pure-marketplace model launching across that many markets simultaneously is not a small commitment.

The local Pushback:

Media-Expert’s own marketplace launch in autumn 2025 sits apart from this group — as Poland’s largest domestic electronics retailer, its move reads less like an outsider chasing the Polish market and more like a domestic incumbent defending its turf against exactly the kind of external pressure described here.

InPost Buy, live since March 2026 and still in its zero-commission welcome phase (through September 2026), isn’t a marketplace in the classical sense — founded by the biggest Polish logistics provider InPost, it offers no buy box and no seller commission, but focuses solely on monetisation through delivery fees instead. Around 4,000 merchants are already connected, including Modivo.

Marketplace Universe Insight: Six companies launching or preparing marketplaces in the same market within two years is not a coincidence. Poland has been identified as one of Europe’s more attractive growth opportunities precisely because it isn’t already crowded with generalists the way Germany or the UK are. Allegro’s dominance has, paradoxically, kept the field open.

Conclusion

The honest read on Poland in 2026 is that the market looks stable mostly because the challengers haven’t landed yet. Allegro’s position is not under real pressure today — but a market where TikTok Shop, About You, Castorama and MediaMarkt all show up within the same year is not a market anyone should assume stays quiet for long. For brands and sellers, the practical takeaway is this: the entry points for Poland are multiplying, and several of them (Kaufland, InPost Buy) offer meaningfully less competitive shelf space than fighting for visibility on Allegro directly. Whether that’s still true in twelve months is a different question — and one we intend to keep asking.

Key Learnings

• Allegro’s dominance is not up for debate in 2026 — it’s the TIER standard everyone else in the Generalists box has to measure up against.
• Cross-border spending is a Chinese story, full stop. 93.7% of what Poles spend abroad goes to Chinese stores — AliExpress, Temu and Shein aren’t fighting for scraps, they’re the default exit route from the domestic market.
• Watch the platforms outside the chart as closely as the ones inside it. Vinted’s GMV already outranks most listed Fashion & Shoes players; Douglas has the retail footprint but not (yet) the confirmed marketplace volume in Poland.
• Poland is no longer flying under the radar. Kaufland, Castorama and MediaMarkt all converted retail operations into marketplaces within a 12-month window — and TikTok Shop, About You, easyShop and InPost Buy have all made moves since, some live, some still ahead.
• Not every domestic marketplace launch is about growth ambition. Media-Expert’s move looks more like defense against external pressure than expansion for its own sake — a distinction worth keeping in mind as more incumbents follow suit.
• For brands weighing market entry, the timing question has changed. A year ago, Poland meant Allegro or nothing. Today there are genuinely easier, less crowded entry points — but that window won’t stay open indefinitely if this pace of new launches continues.

Want to add your voice?

Did we miss an emerging player in our analysis of marketplaces in Poland? Help us make the quadrant even more precise for 2027!

Visit our Quadrants Main Page to explore category-based and country-based analyses.

Do you have anything to add to our country quadrant for Poland? Let us know!

Der Beitrag Top Marketplaces in Poland – Marketplace Country Quadrant Poland 2026 erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.