Germany's 9 Most Popular Online Marketplaces

Short answer: if you are opening your first sales channel in Germany, Amazon.de and eBay.de give you the volume and the buyer trust, OTTO and Kaufland are the strongest local alternatives, Zalando owns fashion, Temu owns the price-led end of the market, MediaMarkt leads in electronics and Decathlon in sport. The right choice depends on your category, your margin and the operating model you can realistically run. The table below is a quick comparison.

*The standalone ASOS Marketplace is being closed from 2025; existing sellers are being migrated to ASOS.com itself under the Partner Fulfils model. More on this below.

Germany is Europe's largest e-commerce market and the natural first stop for international brands expanding across the continent. According to the German E-Commerce Association (bevh) and the Cologne-based EHI Retail Institute, online retail turnover has been running at around 140 billion euros in recent years. At that scale it makes little sense to tie yourself to a single platform; a multi-channel approach is the more sensible starting point.

Does it make sense to sell online in Germany?

In short: yes. A significant share of Germany's 500 largest online retailers have already moved part of their sales onto marketplaces, and Amazon and eBay are active across most of them. Stable demand on one side and a mature ecosystem on the other means both opportunity and real competition for a new entrant. That is exactly why you should pick your marketplace by category fit rather than by headline size.

1) Amazon.de

Amazon.de is the largest marketplace in Germany and the one with the highest brand recognition. The core advantage of selling on Amazon is immediate access to a large, loyal customer base combined with the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) infrastructure. With FBA your stock ships from Amazon's warehouses at Prime speed, and the platform absorbs much of the customer service and returns workload.

Strengths: every category is open to you, the advertising and analytics tooling is genuinely strong, and registration is straightforward. The downsides are intense competition and the combined referral plus FBA cost, which can squeeze a thin margin. If you would rather not hand everything to FBA, a hybrid model built on your own local warehousing and fulfilment is perfectly workable. Whichever route you take, plan your advertising budget before launch rather than after your first slow month.

2) eBay.de

With more than 150 million visits a month, eBay.de is one of the most heavily used marketplaces in the country. It supports fixed price, auction and best-offer formats, which makes it unusually well suited to second-hand goods, rare items and collectables. Its international shipping and payment tools also take some of the friction out of cross-border selling.

3) OTTO

Headquartered in Hamburg, OTTO is a long-established German player focused on fashion and lifestyle. Against global operators such as Amazon and eBay, it holds something they cannot buy quickly: decades of German consumer trust. Its seller approval process is deliberately strict, which keeps product quality and buyer confidence high - and means approved sellers face less competition, but competition of a higher standard.

4) Zalando

Zalando is Europe's largest online fashion platform, carrying more than 2,000 brands and reaching an enormous audience. Its service standards are demanding - free delivery and returns, long return windows - but the reach available to a branded fashion seller is hard to match elsewhere. In 2025 it brought ABOUT YOU into the group, widening the Zalando ecosystem further still. If you sell fashion, budget properly for returns management: German fashion return rates are among the highest in Europe and they will decide whether the channel is profitable.

5) Kaufland.de

Formerly Real.de, Kaufland is a fast-growing marketplace covering a broad non-food assortment across electronics, fashion and home. Its biggest asset is international reach: Kaufland Global Marketplace now operates in nine European countries - Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, France, Italy, plus Spain and the Netherlands, added in summer 2026. For sellers who want several countries from a single integration, it is one of the most practical multi-country entries available.

6) Temu

Founded in the United States in September 2022, Temu spread rapidly across Europe, including Germany, from 2023 onwards. Its growth rests on aggressive price positioning and a low cost structure for sellers. For anyone running a low price, high volume model it is a fast route to units; if brand equity and margin matter more to you, think carefully about what the positioning does to your pricing strategy on other channels.

7) MediaMarkt.de

With more than forty years of retail behind it, MediaMarkt is a powerful name in electronics and household appliances. Around 20 million visits a month gives sellers in the electronics niche a category-focused audience with high purchase intent. Note that electronics brings extra obligations in Germany - packaging and WEEE registration in particular - so factor regulatory compliance into your launch plan.

8) ASOS

ASOS is a global fashion brand aimed at a younger audience, and there is an important update here: the standalone ASOS Marketplace is closing from 2025, with existing boutique and independent sellers migrating to the Partner Fulfils model on the main ASOS site. In other words, selling on ASOS is no longer a separate marketplace play but an integration on the main site in which stock control stays with the seller. It remains a valuable channel for a fashion brand, but the application and eligibility criteria have changed.

9) Decathlon.de

In sport and outdoor, Decathlon has been a significant force in German e-commerce since 2009. Its positioning combines low prices with dependable quality, and alongside its own labels - Quechua, B'Twin, Kipsta, Tribord - it carries selected international brands. For anyone selling active lifestyle products, that makes it a strong category-specific channel rather than a general one.

Where should you start in Germany?

A practical route: begin with Amazon.de for the broadest reach, add Zalando or OTTO if your category is fashion, and bring in Kaufland when you want several countries at once. Whichever platform you are on, the things that actually win are the same: sensible pricing, listings written properly in German rather than machine-translated, and a delivery and returns flow that does not generate complaints.

Getting the operational side right from day one - customs and export documentation, logistics and fulfilment, and German-language customer service - protects the margin most sellers quietly lose in their first year. German buyers expect fast answers in their own language, and marketplace metrics punish sellers who cannot provide them.

Choose the marketplace that matches your category and your margin, not the one with the biggest headline traffic number. Reach you cannot serve profitably is not reach.

If you would like to talk through an entry into Germany, share your current catalogue and your targets and we will map out the marketplace mix and operating model that fits. Book a free assessment →

About the author

Yaman Alpata - Founder, MegaMerchant. Former manager at Trendyol, Hepsiburada and Alibaba Group. He has spent ten years in cross-border e-commerce, running the operations that brands need in order to sell on global marketplaces.