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.

Amazon lost 50% of its Czech e-commerce revenue. Not once — twice, in two consecutive years. That's the data point that triggered this conversation. But the more interesting story isn't Amazon's decline. It's what that decline reveals about a region that Western e-commerce still fundamentally misreads.

David Cikanek is a Prague-based marketplace expert who has spent years helping brands navigate Amazon and the broader CEE landscape. In this episode, he pushes back hard on one of the most persistent myths in European e-commerce: that Central and Eastern Europe is one market with one strategy. It isn't. The Czech Republic spends per capita are comparable to the Netherlands. Poland has Allegro — a genuine platform giant with 30%+ market share. Romania had eMAG, once called the Amazon of the East, now quietly retreating while a Turkish challenger backed by Chinese money closes in. Hungary is behind the rest of the region in terms of online penetration. These are not variations on a theme. They are different markets.

We also get into why Temu is winning the region while Shein is losing, why Kaufland's marketplace expansion raises more questions than it answers amongst the locals, and why TikTok Shop is more likely to be an upper-funnel discovery tool than a structural threat.

This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at CEE on a map and thought: same region, same playbook. Spoiler: it isn't.

📊 The CZ marketplace data chart referenced in this episode: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7470062455113691137/

The EU fined Temu €200M, France hit Shein with another penalty. Is this the turning point many in European e-commerce have been waiting for? In this episode, Ingrid and Valerie go through the most important marketplace news of the last few weeks. Their take on regulation: it works – slowly, but for real. The first genuine DSA enforcement actions against Temu and Shein are a clear signal. Amazon dominates two news blocks: Prime Day this year runs from 23 to 26 June – earlier and longer than ever before. And with Amazon Supply Chain Services, Amazon is opening its entire logistics network to every industry for the first time. Meanwhile, the AI shopping race is already running: structured product data is your advantage now – for AI agents and human customers alike. Also: JD.com is eyeing the UK's Very Group after the Ceconomy deal was put on hold, Otto is opening to Polish sellers, and eBay is making a clear recommerce statement in its fee structure.

Note to Agentic Commerce:

AI shopping is moving so fast that even a dedicated news block barely scratches the surface. For the fuller picture, we published a deep-dive analysis on marketplace-universe.com. https://marketplace-universe.com/when-buyer-is-algorithm-what-brands-need-to-know-about-agentic-commerce/

A 130-year-old brand on a channel that didn't exist five years ago - and one of the most honest assessments of TikTok Shop you're likely to hear. Stephanie Vanderplank-Jones built Philips' TikTok Shop business in the UK from scratch and is currently expanding into Germany, France and Spain. In this episode, she explains why 80% of Philips customers spend more than two and a half hours on TikTok every day - and why that was the decisive reason for Philips to enter TikTok Shop. She talks about why the first six to nine months on the platform are essentially a paid experiment, and how to bring stakeholders through that phase without losing their trust. Stephanie also explains why affiliates require far more work than most brands expect - and why that's especially true in newer markets like Germany. And she makes clear why TikTok Shop isn't just for low-priced products: Philips now sells devices up to €400 on the platform.

Note from the sponsor ChannelEngine:

20,000 SKUs across seven Kaufland markets - without starting from scratch seven times. The Handyhuellen.de case shows how an existing Kaufland Germany setup was rolled out to six additional countries with the help of ChannelEngine - and why that is exactly what makes the difference in cross-border expansion. Individual markets were technically activated in around two hours, the new countries reached around 50% of Germany's sales volume after one year, and Italy is already number two after Germany. The full case with all the details is available at Marketplace Universe. https://marketplace-universe.com/best-practice-how-handyhuellen-de-scaled-into-seven-kaufland-markets/

AI can generate an impressive product image – but can it deliver that same image, correctly named, in the right format, and on time to Zalando, About You, and Amazon simultaneously? That, says Fabio Loparco, CEO of Pixel Moda, is where the real problem lies. In this episode, Valerie speaks with Fabio about what has changed in AI-powered content production for fashion brands since September 2025. They discuss why AI-assisted and Generative AI are two fundamentally different business models. Why scalability doesn't come from the tool itself, but from its integration into the production infrastructure. And why Zalando produces 70% more content at the same cost – not because they have better AI, but because they rebuilt their operating model around it.

Note from the sponsor ChannelEngine:

TikTok Shop is worth it – but only if you get the fundamentals right. Because TikTok Shop rewards content performance, runs on creator trust, and punishes weak operational processes. The brands winning right now have the infrastructure to back up their content strategy. That's exactly where ChannelEngine comes in: the platform connects your backend directly to TikTok Shop, handling real-time stock sync, listing compliance, and order routing – so your operations don't fall apart when your content takes off. The full deep dive on how to win on TikTok Shop is right here on Marketplace Universe. https://marketplace-universe.com/how-to-succeed-on-tiktok_shop/

Note from the sponsor eDesk:

Every unanswered pre-sale question can mean a lost purchase. Every slow response can hurt seller performance. And every poorly handled complaint can turn into a negative review that affects visibility for weeks. Many sellers spend months optimising ads, listings and prices – but a significant share of revenue is won or lost in a place many still underestimate: the inbox. That's exactly what we'll be discussing in a free webinar on 2 June at 11 AM CET with Gareth Cummings, CEO of eDesk, and Irene Epp from Pertemba – who sell on more than 100 global marketplaces and handle over 1,000 customer inquiries per day. Register right now here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/6717775614141/WN_45_8U9P_TKWx-WzmbZnGFQ#/registration

Live commerce in Europe is still too often viewed through an Asian lens - and that's exactly the problem. In this episode, Ingrid sits down with Lara Day, who has been building eBay Live in Germany for the past year, six months after the official launch. They explore why the European model needs its own logic and can't simply be a watered-down version of the Asian one.

They discuss why re-commerce, secondhand and fashion are the natural entry points for live commerce in Europe - not because of entertainment value, but because live commerce solves a trust problem that static product images never could. And why returns play a bigger role in this equation than most people assume.

The episode also features two sellers who are already active on eBay Live: Benjamin Gabriel, who sells refurbished electronics, and Meroda, who sells vintage fashion. Both describe how the personal connection to the buyer in a live stream changes purchase decisions - and reduces returns.

Plus: how much technology and production does a successful live stream actually require? The answer might surprise you.

Note to the eBay webinar:

Want to go deeper? On June 16, 11. a.m. we're hosting a free webinar What It Really Takes to Succeed in Live Commerce together where Mason Howell from eBay and Ingrid Lommer will walk you through exactly how eBay Live works, what you need to get started, and how brands and retailers can make the most of it. Here's the Registration Link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/5017786708012/WN_2aFhsYAMSIa8ZIgyy0TJ2g