Starting July 15, Amazon is requiring strict delivery standards from FBM sellers in five EU markets - 90% on-time delivery, one-day processing, or deactivation looms from September. The catch: Amazon doesn't always meet these same standards with its own FBA program. Valerie and Ingrid discuss in this news episode just how fair that really is toward sellers.

They also dig into why JD.com wants its marketplace JoyBuy to move away from the low-cost corner occupied by Temu and AliExpress, positioning itself instead as a credible, more Amazon-like alternative for brands. Whether that's enough to actually stand apart from Amazon itself is another question.

And there's more on the table, including MediaMarktSaturn's ambitious new marketplace target, Zalando's AI-powered digital product twins, and France's latest move against Shein. Plenty to get into for an episode that shows just how thin the line between growth and positioning has become.

Note about the Marketplace Universe Live Events:

Our Marketplace Universe Connect events are the go-to gathering for all Marketplace professionals in Europe - an evening filled with food, drinks, and new connections, because we believe that, at the end of the day, every business is a people business. Next, we’ll be hosting live events in Cologne and Munich. The events are free, but spots are very limited – apply here now to get on the guest list and join us! https://marketplace-universe.com/events/connect/

Is TikTok Shop an e-commerce channel or a marketing channel? Ask ten marketplace managers right now and you'll get ten different answers – and that confusion is exactly where this episode starts.

Ingrid and Valerie sit down with Max Burianek, Head of TikTok Shop Germany, who built the platform's UK business before bringing it to Germany. Germany is scaling faster than the UK did at the same stage after launch – driven by sellers leaning into content and creator collaboration from day one. The price tag has gone up too – commissions in Germany just rose from 5% to 7–9%. Particularly telling: enterprise brands like Philips are now pulling up to 70% of revenue from content formats – proof this isn't just a playground for social-native D2C brands anymore.

The real insight, though, is organizational. Burianek argues brands need to treat creators the way they've treated CRM for the last decade – he calls it "Creator Relationship Management." Where the team sits matters less than who leads it.

If you're still on the fence about TikTok Shop, or unsure who in your org should even own it – this one's for you.

When German e-commerce expert Stefan Wenzel took the stage of the K5 conference last week to show a satellite photo of the Atacama Desert — where unsold fashion goes to die — you could hear a pin drop.

His thesis: Sales-led commerce is broken, the numbers have proven it for years, and the industry has simply chosen not to look.

Ingrid and Valerie were there in the stage hall, and they have thoughts.

In this episode, we talk about the K5 theses that actually hurt: why endless growth targets have turned into margin pressure, dead stock and return chaos; why “Made in China” may no longer mean cheap copy, but faster, better and smarter; and why Europe should be very careful before confusing resignation with strategy.

We also ask whether authenticity is really the last human advantage in an AI-heavy commerce world — or just the next buzzword everyone will put into a LinkedIn post.

And then there is the topic that was glaringly missing from the big stage: recommerce. Second-hand, refurbished, circular models — one of the most European AND growing commerce stories out there. So why was everyone only talking about AI?

A sweaty, sharp and slightly uncomfortable debrief after Germany's most relevant e-commerce conference about broken growth logic, Chinese speed, European blind spots and the things the industry still prefers not to see.