Amazon introduces its new AI feature “Help Me Decide” – a shopping assistant that uses your browsing and search history to make suggestions for your next purchase. In addition to this news, Valerie and Ingrid also discuss why Bauhaus only launched its marketplace after two years of development and whether the DIY market is too late to the party. They talk about a real early starter in the refurbished goods market, namely refurbed and its planned expansion into the UK. They also take a look at Zalando's market entry in Portugal and what it means for the market there. And they talk about the highly astonishing figures that can be gleaned from the transparency reports of the Very Large Online Platforms (spoiler: Aliexpress is much bigger than most people think).

Here is the link to all the VLOP figures: https://marketplace-universe.com/chinese-platforms-in-europe/ 

Note from the sponsor base:

Central and Eastern Europe, global giants like Aliexpress and Temu are making waves, but it's local heroes that truly dominate the scene: Allegro leads the pack in Poland with over €12 billion in GMV, eMAG is a powerhouse in Romania, and Heureka has expanded from a price comparison site to a marketplace giant in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And with platforms like Aliexpress, Temu, and Shein continuing to grow, CEE has become the perfect playground for e-commerce opportunities. If you want to learn more, join our webinar “Cracking the CEE Code: Marketplace Strategies for Central & Eastern Europe” on November 18th at 11 AM – Together with our partner Base we’ll dive into all the details on marketplace strategies across Central and Eastern Europe. Register right now here! https://zoom.us/webinar/register/8617538153683/WN_X14-bg1HTQOQbfMZSWNJ5w#/registration

Note from the sponsor eBay:

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Amazon just announced a new AI feature.

It's called Help Me Decide.

Part of their growing family of AI shopping tools.

And the idea here is quite simply based on your browsing history and past searches and preferences, the Amazon AI will now suggest which product will actually fit you best.

Yeah.

So it helps you decide for the right product.

Let's Talk Marketplace the Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lommer and.

Hello everyone and welcome back to let's Talk Marketplace.

I'm Ygritte and as always, I'm joined by Valerie.

It's the end of October and as always at the end of the month.

We will give you a short news update today about everything important that happened in the Marketplace space in the last few weeks.

And yeah, I can say right ahead that I'm happy with what we can present you today because we can offer you a lot of strong new figures and numbers and, and interesting news.

Yeah, I totally agree and welcome from my side as well.

There were lots of crazy stuff happen, stuff happening in October, new AI moves from Amazon, slowing growth from the Chinese giants and fresh marketplace launches here in Europe.

So yes, Ingrid has really been down that rabbit data rabbit hole again and we are really happy to present this to you today.

Yeah, well, Gildy is charged for our analysis of at the Marketplace universe.

I spent a lot of hours diving into the EU transparency reports, you know, those of the very large online platforms or short vlops, and they map really out how important AliExpress, Shein, Temu and TikTok have already become to the European consumers.

And I could also calculate the penetration rate of each of these platforms per country and that reveals quite a lot of interesting insights.

Yeah, we really worked hard on that one and to give you a great overview and yeah, I can't wait to hear what you uncovered.

But first let's kick off with the latest news fresh from our weekly newsletter this morning.

Yeah, and that is something about Amazon because Amazon just announced a new AI feature.

It's called Help Me Decide.

Part of their growing family of AI shopping tools.

They've got already Rufus and Lens Life and AI shopping guides and stuff like that.

And now Help Me Decide.

And the idea here is quite simply based on your browsing history and past searches and preferences, the Amazon AI will now suggest which product will actually fit you best.

Yeah.

So it helps you decide for the right product.

Yeah.

What would you think about that?

Well, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I mean, this is exactly what everyone in the agent E commerce space has been talking about, giving users a guided AI based buying journey.

And Amazon is basically saying, well, we can do that too.

So, I mean, we also discussed this a few seasons ago, maybe in the last news.

Oh, and the one, the episode with.

About Amazon, Ms. Martin.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

We already were discussing what is Amazon doing here in the AI space and why are they always reacting instead of acting and innovating and as we say.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I mean it's not like just like reacting, I mean, to, to, well, to work on a new tool.

It's not like, oh, we started working last week because we heard it in the news.

Yeah, of course, I think there's a longer time before they work on.

But yeah, I would say Amazon became more a huge, huge company and it's also maybe not that fast as it has been where always was day one.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, this helped me decide.

Doesn't really sound revolutionary to me, I have to say, because, I mean, come on, ChatGPT can do that for you.

And why should you actually open Amazon and ask Amazon to do that for you if you can ask another chatbot that you are already using daily?

So, yeah, let's see.

Well, but still, you know.

So now the question is really like, is it really an innovation or reaction, as you said?

Um, but it's not really.

It's.

It's just like life in the US now.

Right?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

It's just in the US and not a European story yet.

But I think it does show that Amazon is feeling the pressure, you know, with all the ChatGPT shopping experiments and of course all the AI search stuff that's going on from, from Google and also from other platforms like Miracle, for example, so they can't afford to look static.

That's quite true.

Let's see.

Yeah.

So I would say let's, let's go on the next news or Insights, I would call it more the insights part.

Yeah.

Let's talk about number crunching you have been doing with the figures from the EU transparency reports.

Maybe you, you can just explain what the EU transparency report is and what we've done with it.

Yeah, well, those reports come from the Digital Services Act EU has enforced and that says that all the big online platforms, so everyone that is reaching more than 75 million users in the EU has to do regular transparency reports and there they report on a lot of different things.

Normally it's about fraud and about things that are about users that are complaining about stuff.

But a part of this transparency reports are, is data about the average monthly users that this platform has in each European country.

And this is a data mine.

This is really, really, really datamine, especially as these transparency reports have to be handed in in a standardized format that the EU has given them.

So each of them looks alike and the numbers are really compare the numbers because they are all using the same database.

And yeah, and, and the, the transparency reports come out twice a year.

So it gives you a good insight on how this, these platforms are moving and which countries they are growing faster and slower, stuff like that.

So I've been looking at those.

Okay, so we have like t AliExpress.

And TikTok, tick tock and Amazon.

What about Amazon?

Amazon in this case I, I didn't include Amazon in my analysis because their next transparency report is coming out I think early November.

So.

So it's not everything at the same time.

No, they're not.

Some of them are handing them out in for, for the first half year in June.

Some are using or defining the first half year from April to September.

So yeah, things are there.

They are not really comparable but it's about, about twice a year and they are coming out at different times.

So in this case I looked at the Chinese players and I started a really big database to put all these transparency reports together and I do also have the numbers for Amazon as well, but not those for the last half year.

So I didn't include them in this first analysis.

But it's coming.

So.

But if Zalando and about you is like merging, they could also be quite close to the 75 million they are.

And they have handed in.

Is it users or customers?

Users.

So users that, so people that surfing on their platforms.

Okay, once a month.

That's users they don't have to necessarily buy.

And yeah, Zalando did try to get out of this classification as a very large online platform and the EU has canceled them.

They said no, you are a VLOP now and you have to hand in a transparency report.

And Zalando did hand on, did hand in one but it looked different to the stuff that I saw from the other players.

So they are not reporting monthly users per country as they should.

So I guess this is an ongoing debate between Zalando and the EU and we will see what comes out of it.

But at the moment that transparency report is not really usable for data mining in the way that I'm doing it.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so that's these numbers and I'm.

Excited about that one in the future.

It is really great to have these numbers that the platforms are not happy to give out.

So yeah, they just have to.

Because you tells them to.

Yeah.

And so yeah.

What are like, what are the like main findings you had this time about the VLOP comparison report?

The main thing that really stood out to me was the growth of AliExpress, which is a platform that I don't have on my list.

No, not really.

I, I actually don't know.

It's always like this unbeloved child you didn't care about.

Yeah, we know they're there always hanging there.

But it's like, but it's like no one talks about it.

No one is like telling you.

Because if you, if we talk with brands like no one is telling you, like, yeah, we are selling on no AliExpress.

I don't know anyone.

No, me neither.

And then if everyone is like they were not selling there, then it's like, yeah, okay, why.

Yeah, how did they came so big?

Yeah.

But they are still showing up now.

This is when I realized that a bit earlier when we did our updates on the marketplace quadrants and their AliExpress turned up in every single one that I did in one of the main top five, the top five generalists.

And I was like, what?

Who?

Yeah, why?

How?

And then I looked at the vlog numbers and there I realized, okay, for example in Germany, 30% of Internet users are surfing on AliExpress platform each month.

30% in Germany, where we have this huge penetration of Amazon.

Of course there's still 65% around roundabout Germans use Amazon each month and so 30% serve on AliExpress.

And it gets even stranger if you look at other countries.

In France, nearly 50% penetration.

In Spain, 72% penetration for AliExpress.

So this was I think the thing that stood out most to me that there is a platform growing somewhere in the backyard that we don't realize and they are not.

Well, I have been noticing now that they are investing in advertisement as well.

So there are some, you know, some of my stupid mobile gaming apps that I sometimes use and there sometimes AliExpress is now popping up.

It's like, okay, I didn't see them before.

Strange.

And yeah, so let's see what that is about.

And if everyone, anyone's listening here that is actually selling on AliExpress, please let us know.

Really like to hear some experiences I think.

Yeah, I think that's the main thing.

And then of course still interesting is the growth of Shein and Temu.

They are continuously growing in most countries but it seems that penetration growth is slowing down a little bit, especially as I compare those to the numbers that I took from the transparency reports last year.

Then growth is still there, but it is slowing down a little bit.

And, and then what means slowing down.

A little bit in terms of like numbers?

Like how was it last year and how like what the gross is the growth.

I, as I said, I transferred these user numbers into penetration which I calculate by saying okay, one country has that, these kind of millions of population and I divide the monthly users by this population and then I get a percentage and that percent is what I call penetration.

And for example, we have in, for example in Spain a penetration for Shein of around about 52%.

And this is, this is up 6 percentage points from last year.

So last year we had the total penetration.

Yeah, in total penetration.

Okay, so penetration points.

So that rose by 6%, 6 percentage points for example.

And that was, this growth of percentage points was a bit higher last year.

So it does.

Yeah, but naturally it's just natural.

Yeah, I think, I mean if you.

Start a new market and then if their penetration was quite low then growth rates are insane.

And the, the bigger you get the E, the more difficult it will be it is to grow and to grow with the same growth rates.

Right?

Yes, that's definitely for sure.

But it's, that's already a big number.

So we did this for which countries in, in Europe?

Well, I, in my big tableau Excel tableau which is quite a monster.

There's all the, in all European countries there.

But we did a closer analysis on Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.

And you can read everything, the detailed numbers, the overviews, you get everything on our website markuppliceminusuniverse.com Chinese -platforms, -in, -Europe.

But you can also just go to our website and go to Insights and then you'll find it.

Yeah, or on our LinkedIn you will find it there too.

And you get all the detailed numbers we're talking about and can watch like more detailed your specific country or if you're excited about Shein or whatever.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anything else to share about this report.

Ingrid, about this report?

Not, but I would include as we are talking about numbers at the moment, I have seen some numbers that are fitting my owners analysis from a different point of view and that was about turnover again.

Someone looked at the growth rates of turnover by Shein and Timu and then I read some Happy campers on LinkedIn who said like look, growth is slowing down.

Like she in the last nine years has grown annually by about 75% in Europe.

Hooray.

And the same thing for Amifotemu.

Yeah.

Timu has been growing by 500 average growth rate year by year, and now they're just growing by 13.4%.

And now everyone's like, yay, they're hitting a plateau.

We don't have to really in intimo again.

That's great, isn't it?

It's like, no, the level where they are already came so far.

That's so high.

You should really worry and take care about it.

Yeah.

If they're not slowing down, that just means they have reached a quite high penetration and a high turnover and.

Yeah, yeah, of course they are still growing, but.

And still growing faster than the average European e commerce.

And this is what really matters, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

So numbers, you have to really look in how you interpret the numbers, I think.

For sure.

Yeah.

Right.

So I would say it's first time for our first break.

Yeah.

And talking about numbers, we have some great insights together with our partner base on the CE market.

Are you ready to explore a marketplace landscape where Amazon plays second fiddle?

That's Central and Eastern Europe.

Global giants there like AliExpress, as I just said, and Timor making waves.

But the local heroes like Allegro and Emac and Eureka are truly dominating the scene.

Yeah, that's right.

Allegro leads the pack in Poland with over 12 billion Euro in GMV.

EMAC is a powerhouse in Romania.

And Eureka has expanded from a price comparison site to a marketplace giant in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

These local platforms are not just competing, they are setting the standard in their respective countries.

And with platforms like AliExpress, Timo and Shein continuing to grow, CEE has become the perfect playground for e commerce opportunities.

So if you want to learn more, you can join our webinar, Cracking the CE Marketplace Strategies for Central and Eastern Europe, which is on November 18th at.

11Am yes, and you can register on our website.

So, together with our partner base, you will dive into all the details of marketplace strategy across Central and Eastern Europe.

And you will find the link for the registration in the show notes.

Okay, on to the next news story.

And that is one for you, because this is about Zalando.

Zalando has officially gone live in Portugal and has also simultaneously launched its beauty category in Spain.

That's interesting.

I didn't actually realize that Zalando wasn't already active in Portugal.

Do you know why?

Well, so first of all, it's great that they finally expanding to it.

They already said this in the annual report last year that they expanded will expand to Portugal as well.

So finally it's.

It's happening end of October or in October.

But as far as I know they just started their online store in Portugal.

Not yet the marketplace business, but I think it's just a matter of time and like not a long matter of time till they also open the marketplace, the partner program for Portugal.

And yeah, they also launched beauty category in Spain which is also great.

Same topic here.

Because of beauty overall I would say at Zalando is also a more challenging topic in terms of logistics.

They were a long time not able to support beauty products with their Zios and logistic platform and set aside as well because of like so many different logistical standards and challenges which beauty products come with just like hazard products like flammable goods etc, glass, heat, cold, whatever.

But I think it's really good that they started finally in Portugal because there are not as many other fashion marketplaces.

Right.

So yeah, that's true.

I mean there's basically Wharton which is a local player there, but not that big.

And then there's of course she in which has taken over the market by storm over the last year.

Yeah.

Which is obvious because if there is not as not a competition at all and if it's the main and only way possible to buy online fashion then yeah, people go there.

Right.

Well, it is about you and has been for quite a few years.

So I want wonder actually I mean Salando and about you same same but different now because they belong together.

So I'm actually I. I wondered a bit why they are expanding Salando to Portugal and not just trying to strengthen about you in the market.

Well, I mean if it's now same same then it's easier for them also to go there.

And the thing is the customers in terms of like the, the brands who are selling on about you and on Salando, they're still quite different.

I mean there's I think an overlap of 30% which I think it's quite small.

Like giving the.

The.

The background that they are both the like very big fashion online marketplaces in Europe.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think it's really good that they started in Portugal now as Solando because brands can easily expand them there.

And also for Portuguese brands it's easier to enter.

I mean it was also easy to enter but before for them.

But yeah, now their home country is there and in Portugal, I mean there's a lot of like fashion production as well.

So there are like a lot of like fashion brands, smaller labels, but I would also say smaller labels are more happy at about you and they are more open to get small brands online is about you.

Definitely.

We also have a webinar by the way about that topic.

That's true.

On the November 6th and yeah, so yeah, fashion is still like a lot in movement and, and still expanding.

But we also have to say that Portugal is not the biggest ever market.

So I think that's the reason why Portugal came so late into the country.

Share of Zalando.

Absolutely.

Talking about new marketplaces, we've got some other two other launches to report in October and both of them were in Germany.

The first is Verbode French kids fashion marketplace.

They launched in Germany.

And secondly.

Drumroll.

Bauhaus, after I think more than two years of development, the German DIY and garden giant is now finally opening their marketplace.

Hooray.

Can you say anything about vid by bod maybe?

Yeah, well, web is the fun one.

It's a niche kids fashion, strong brand in France, easy to get.

Why they go Germany?

Because yeah, it's the closest market and the big market for them.

And to be very honest, I mean in terms of like niche kids fashion marketplaces, it's very rare to find them in Germany anymore.

I mean there's Limango maybe, but my toys has gone a few years ago.

No one really filled the gap.

No.

And then yeah, I mean you obviously can also buy baby clothes and stuff at about you and Zalando, but there's like no specialized store in it and they are not specialized in it to be very honest.

And we have a few other small marketplaces, baby marked and stuff and yeah, but they are like.

Yeah, but on a such small level and scale in terms of marketplace business, not in terms of usual retail business, but in terms of marketplace.

So yeah, I'm quite curious to get a new marketplace in Germany.

Yeah, yeah, for that kind of category.

And Bauhaus you have more insights as far as I know.

Well, let's see if they come too late to the party to be honest, because I reported that Bauhaus was going to do a marketplace I think over two years ago and they had a lot of trouble with the software.

I think they changed the provider to Miracle, which a lot of people are doing at the moment.

Actually the same happened to Tesco.

They also like in they already had their marketplace launched and in the mid of it they changed to their software to Miracle and Bauhaus has had problem there.

And then they had trouble onboarding the sellers and it was, I think the whole project was difficult for them.

And now they are online.

But their main competitor, I think is obi, the other big retail chain for DIY in Germany.

And they have set their marketplace up and running for over a year now.

So yeah, it will be hard to catch up, I think, but we'll see.

We'll see.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's good like to like readjust right before you think, like maybe that was not the best decision but it took you that it took them so much time.

Right, yeah.

Well, let's have another quick break and afterwards look at a very interesting section of the market.

Christmas is just around the corner and with it comes the biggest logistics challenge of the year.

Because in the holiday season it's not the most beautiful product that wins, but the smoothest shipping process.

Exactly.

Customers expect on time deliveries, easy returns and full transparency.

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Check out ebay's full peak season checklist and shipping tips now.

You will find the link in the show notes.

Okay, now for our last piece, let's come to a different market and that is second hand.

We've got some very interesting news from refurbed big Austrian marketplace or Austrian based marketplace that is focusing mainly on refurbished electronics.

And they just raised 50 million euros to accelerate their European expansion and it seems they want to take a part of that money to enter the UK market soon.

That sounds like a really bold story.

I think it is.

But no, that's refurb for you.

They are spelling bold.

I think that's true.

Refurb has become the poster child for circular commerce.

Done right quality control, they do warranty sustainability and proper branding.

And it's not second hand as in use stuff on ebay.

It's premium refurbished.

Yes, yes, they are really going for this premium segment and I think refurbed is a great example on how to.

Build.

A sustainable and secondhand marketplace.

Today they entered the market second.

The first one in Europe was Back Market, a French competitor here and Back Market is still the leader in most European countries when it comes to refurbished electronics.

But Refurbed has really had a great rocket start and have been expanding to a lot of countries and now taking on the uk.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean and they, they came early to the party and they, they've done their job pretty well.

And now like you see electronics, refurbished electronics are quite a huge market in terms but in terms of marketplaces there hasn't been as many when they started and now they just like go fast.

They are also like former Amazon employees.

So yeah they know how to scale obviously if they get so much investments.

And what I think quite interesting is really that they go to the.

Into the UK because I would say UK in terms of like.

I mean UK overall is already a challenging market from the central Eastern.

From the central European perspective I would say.

I mean we had the session a few weeks ago the podcast episode about it and then especially when it comes to electronics and refurbished products.

So yeah, it's not choose an easier market.

Yeah, I guess, yeah.

But on the other hand, you know, I mean Refurb does have to if they.

They have to scale quickly because the topic as you said when they started out they and Back Market were basically the only marketplaces that were selling refurbished electronics.

But now the topic has spread so far and wide.

I mean Vinted which is actually a fashion retailer for used Fashion Place.

Yeah.

They opened their categories to basically everything that is used also electronics and there is of course ebay but there's also players retailer players like mediamarkt or CD on or FNAC that are offering refurbished products.

So there is competition coming and a pure player like Refurbed has to.

Has to act to stay ahead of the pack.

Speaking of all these interesting players, I think we should do a marketplace quadrant or something on we is good.

No it's not me actually I I handed that to our editor Christiane do have just do a research you know just take to find out who in yours is.

Is using secondhand and refurbished products and.

Overall products you mean.

Right.

Yes.

For now I would like to have an overview of all those platforms in each category that are doing second hand because this is a very different market and also yeah different sellers are looking for platforms here.

So yeah, we're working on that but it turns out to be quite, quite a piece of research because there's so many platforms now that are offering things like that.

So.

Yeah, but soonish.

Swedish.

Okay, well.

Okay, so that was our overview for today, I think.

Yeah, Big takeaways.

Well, we had some great figures with the transparency report we had.

We agree that Timo and Shiin are not really collapsing.

They are just consolidating in a way because they have moved so fast already.

And yeah, we have looked at Zalando and how they are doing in Portugal and about new marketplaces, places in different countries.

So lots in October.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much, Ingrid, for putting everything together because we have to be very open and honest.

This is all based on Ingrid's research mainly.

And yeah, our marketplace landscape is more dynamic than ever.

It's no longer.

Yeah, just about price or reach.

You really have to be like on top of the game.

And it's also not a niche anymore because sometimes I think if we are on events or something, then we are like, yeah, we're talking about the marketplace business.

Like, nah, it's not so interesting.

And I, I think like, hey, man, like 70 of the E Commerce turnover in Europe, it's not a niche.

No, but.

But we also have to say that in Germany, numbers are different.

Germany is not the 70% turnover share from Marketplace business.

Maybe that's a challenge for us sometimes on German events, but we're going broader and broader.

And for example, we had last week our Marketplace Universe Connect event in Munich and there came people from six different countries.

So listeners like you, they came just for our event.

It was really, really great to connect all of you and to get so many insights from so many different brands and.

Yeah, because everyone's got a piece of.

The truth, you know, and it's always nice to keep them, Bring all those pieces together.

Yeah.

And bring you together to connect with each other, to reconnect, because you knew each other from before, from somewhere else.

And yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you for joining us, for joining us, for listening to us and then moving to the newsletter or to our events or webinars.

And yeah, we will definitely expand that in the future also to other countries.

Yes, sooner or later.

Because we have some other baby news in the future for you.

And yeah, I would say listen to us next time on all the.

This time and next time on all.

The different platforms and.

Yeah, see you then.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

You listen to let's Talk Marketplace, the.

Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lommer and Valerie Dichtel.