Welcome to our special interview series featuring the winners of the E-commerce Germany Awards 2024. This prestigious event honors exceptional excellence, commitment, and notable accomplishments in the e-commerce industry. It serves as a stage to celebrate the visionaries driving the sector forward with their innovative solutions and pioneering ideas.
Today we share our conversation with Doreen Schumm, Head of Marketplace Sales, in Kaufland Global Marketplace. Let’s read about their winning solution, Kaufland Global Marketplace, that allows online sellers to sell on all of Kaufland’s marketplaces in different countries with just one registration
EGN: Could you describe your company in a few words?
Doreen Schumm: The roots of Kaufland Global Marketplace have been branching out since 2007, when it first launched as a startup under the name Hitmeister. Kaufland.de itself was launched in April 2021. The underlying technologies and processes have grown and matured over more than 14 years and form a strong foundation which offers a range of ways to connect and handle processing. More than 110 national and international software service providers now offer interface solutions for online sellers on the Kaufland marketplaces. In 2022, we became a part of the Schwarz Group, one of Europe’s biggest retailers. We currently have more than 850 employees working closely with our sellers on a mission to create an outstanding shopping experience for customers. We have offices in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Darmstadt, a coworking space in Berlin and two warehouse locations for our fulfillment service in Bönen and Cheb (CZ). Thanks to our remote work option, our employees can be found not only in Europe, but all over the world.
At the beginning of 2023, Kaufland expanded its international presence under the umbrella brand Kaufland Global Marketplace. In addition to the German marketplace Kaufland.de, the online marketplaces Kaufland.sk in Slovakia and Kaufland.cz in the Czech Republic were also launched. After just a few months, both marketplaces have recorded exponential growth and are among the top online marketplaces in their respective countries. On Kaufland.sk, 4,200 sellers have a range of 6.5 million products on offer, while on Kaufland.cz there are 4,700 sellers with a total of 5.9 million items on sale.
The next expansion will take place in August and September of this year. With the additions of Kaufland.pl and Kaufland.at, Kaufland Global Marketplace is adding two more marketplaces to its portfolio and will enable sellers to expand their reach to Poland and Austria.
EGN: What was the solution you decided to put in for our competition?
Doreen Schumm: Kaufland Global Marketplace is an all-in-one solution that allows online sellers to sell on all of Kaufland’s marketplaces in different countries with just one registration. The multi-marketplace technology enables centralised management of all offers, orders and product data from a single portal. Data can be uploaded to the system in several ways: manually, via CSV or XML file upload, via a self-developed API connection or via interfaces from external software partners. Over 110 connected software interfaces help to automate processes and grow the business on our marketplaces.
Sellers can add further international marketplaces directly in the Seller Portal and thereby easily expand their online presence and reach in a resource-saving manner. The solution helps sellers to quickly and easily sell both nationally and internationally and grow in a scalable manner.
EGN: What makes said solution unique?
Doreen Schumm: Unlike some competitors, Kaufland has brick-and-mortar stores. With over 1,550 stores in eight countries, the Kaufland brand has enormous recognition, which also transfers to the online marketplaces. We repay the trust that sellers and customers place in our brand with outstanding service. This includes offering our customers a wide range of products and providing our sellers with optimal sales conditions. The strong performance of our online marketplaces is fundamental to this: Kaufland is among the biggest retailers in Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and aims to grow further. Combined with the upcoming expansion to Poland and Austria, we will offer sellers access to 81 million potential online customers.
In addition to our technological features, our mindset also sets us apart from our competitors. We attach great importance to forming a long-term partnership with our sellers. We offer fair and transparent conditions: Sellers only pay one basic monthly fee for all marketplaces as well as the sales commissions, which are based on the product category. There are no hidden costs, no limits on the number of offers and no contractual terms.
We regularly evaluate what our sellers need to enable them to optimise their business on our marketplaces and increase their sales. We implement the potential for improvement identified in close cooperation with them so that our multi-marketplace technology and the associated services are constantly evolving. For example, we introduced an international “Fulfillment by Kaufland” fulfillment service and various marketing-tools to promote specific products.
EGN: How can your solution help e-commerce business owners? Is it for everyone or do you aim for specific industries?
Doreen Schumm: Kaufland Global Marketplace grows your sales: It offers optimal conditions for sellers of all sizes and all product ranges. Whether you are a global player or a small-scale seller – selling on the Kaufland marketplaces expands your target groups, increases your reach and helps you grow your business.
EGN: And if we would like to use it? How does the process work?
Doreen Schumm: Once you have registered, the onboarding process is simple and straightforward. The individual steps include creating the shipping groups and offers, submitting tax information, legal texts, returns addresses and warehouses and going live. If needed, sellers can get help at any time via the Seller University, in our webinars or contact our personal seller support.
EGN: If you were asked to name three key advantages of your solution in comparison with your brand’s competitors, what would they be?
Doreen Schumm: Firstly, high brand awareness and simple processes. With 1,550 stores in eight countries, Kaufland enjoys a high level of brand awareness, which also transfers its appeal to the online marketplaces. A single registration grants sellers access to all Kaufland marketplaces. The technical infrastructure lets sellers manage their offers, orders and product data on all Kaufland marketplaces with one centralised Seller Portal.
Secondly, partnership and collaboration. We offer personal seller assistance in multiple languages, personalised performance checks and a lot of supportive marketplace services for sellers. We listen to the feedback from our sellers so that we can improve our marketplaces continuously.
Last but not least, ongoing development of new services and tools. Kaufland Global Marketplace offers numerous services, some of which are free of charge, to increase sales on the marketplaces or make selling easier. These include marketing tools such as Sponsored Product Ads, vouchers or multi-channel marketing options, the international logistics service “Fulfillment by Kaufland”, an individual performance coach, automated product data translation and the continuous development of more services in line with our sellers’ needs.
EGN: What are your plans for the future? Will your solution keep evolving? In what way?
Doreen Schumm: Kaufland Global Marketplace will expand to Poland and Austria in August and September of this year. In Poland, Kaufland is already one of the leading food retailers with 245 stores. We have achieved 99 percent brand awareness, which underlines consumers’ trust in the brand. In addition, Polish online retail recently recorded growth rates of more than 11 percent.
Although Kaufland does not have a bricks-and-mortar presence in Austria, its brand awareness in the country is over 40 percent. In addition, there are hardly any local online marketplace providers with a similarly broad product range. We want to seize this opportunity.
EGN: Do you have plans for other products or services?
Doreen Schumm: As mentioned in our key advantages, sellers can shape the future of the marketplace with us. We are constantly broadening our service portfolio to support sellers with their sales on the Kaufland marketplaces to enable scalable growth and continued expansion. We are in direct contact with our sellers to find out what they need in order to sell optimally with Kaufland Global Marketplace so that they can continue to grow and increase their sales.
Within our Key User Programme, sellers have the opportunity to share their experience with us and actively develop and shape the all-in-one-solution. Our key users take part in surveys and beta tests for newly developed features and services and can test them in the early development phases. This program enables us to shape the future of e-commerce together.
EGN: What is your current goal?
Doreen Schumm: Our goal is to continuously grow and optimise our all-in-one-solution so that we can offer sellers the best possible multi-marketplace technology for the scalable growth of their business. In the long term, we aim to expand our newer marketplaces to the same size as the German marketplace. Our objective is to work with our sellers to offer our customers the best online shopping experience possible with a wide range of products, the best prices, the simplest processes and reliable, fast and flexible delivery.
EGN: What are your predictions for the future concerning your area of expertise?
Doreen Schumm: Our expansion reflects the overall realisation that online marketplaces are becoming increasingly important for the e-commerce industry. It is assumed that online marketplaces already generate 40 percent of all e-commerce sales worldwide and this share is predicted to increase further.
EGN: Why did you decide to take part in the E-commerce Germany Awards 2024?
Doreen Schumm: The award has set the standard for excellence and innovation and recognises the pinnacle of e-commerce innovation. We participated in this important e-commerce award for service providers in the DACH region because we have always been completely confident that our all-in-one solution helps sellers achieve their goals and sustainably achieve continuous e-commerce success. We aimed to introduce ourselves to ambitious sellers who share our goal of developing our potential and who want to inspire online customers together. We entered the E-commerce Germany Award 2024 to draw attention to our multi-marketplace technology and thereby strengthen our network and Kaufland Global Marketplace in the long term.
EGN: And we are very happy that you did. Thank you for this conversation.
In this interview, we talked with Doreen Schumm, Head of Marketplace Sales, about their solution, Kaufland Global Marketplace. This platform enables online sellers to easily expand across multiple countries with a single registration, offering centralized management and extensive support to boost sales and reach. Be sure to check it out!
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