Kaufland opens its online marketplace in Spain with 3,000 sellers
Spain is the ninth market for Kaufland's online marketplace. Sellers pay one monthly fee to sell in all nine countries.
Photo: Kampus Production / Pexels
Kaufland said its online marketplace went live in Spain on 6 October, with more than 3,000 sellers and 10 million products in 6,400 categories, ChannelX reported. Spain is the ninth country for the platform, which belongs to the Schwarz Group, owner of Lidl.
The launch comes a month after the Netherlands. “Our launch in the Netherlands a month ago was the most successful to date,” said Gerald Schönbucher, chief executive of Kaufland e-commerce. He added that Spain starts with more products and sellers from day one.
One Kaufland fee covers nine countries
The marketplace now runs in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Kaufland puts its combined reach at 220 million potential customers.
Sellers pay one monthly base fee to list in all nine markets. They need an official EAN code for every product, product data in each local language and a returns address in the EU. Kaufland offers free translation and a ticket system for customer messages in several languages.
In June, Kaufland told the Spanish trade title Alimarket that more than 500 Spanish merchants were already selling on its other marketplaces. Shoppers in Spain will be able to pay with Bizum, PayPal, Apple Pay, cards and pay-later options.
Kaufland launch lands during Amazon Prime Big Deal Days
The timing put the launch next to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days on 6 and 7 October.
Other European marketplaces have gone the other way. Rakuten France shut its marketplace after 26 years. Kaufland, meanwhile, has used partnerships to build reach at home, such as YouTube’s shopping affiliate scheme in Germany.
Who benefits from the Spain launch
The clearest winners are mid-sized European sellers already on Kaufland. They can now reach Spain with no extra fee and with translation done for them. Spanish sellers gain access to eight more countries in one step. The pressure falls on Amazon.es and other platforms in Spain, which now compete with Kaufland for the same sellers.