Pentagon have kindly agreed to provide Tamebay readers with some additional insights into the marketplaces they introduced during international ecommerce event, Fashion Without Borders. Today they are focusing on Poland’s leading marketplace Allegro.
About Allegro
The ecommerce market in Poland is one of the fastest growing in Europe, and Allegro is the leading e-marketplace in the country, accounting for nearly 60% of the local online shopping industry.
Founded back in 1999, Allegro is not only one of the most popular online platforms in Poland, with 76% of Polish internet users associating ecommerce with the Allegro brand, it’s also one of the most visited sites in the country, alongside Facebook and YouTube.
Currently, Allegro has over 12 million registered users, more than 290,000 buyers and sees nearly 900,000 products purchased daily.
In 2014, Allegro’s market share in Polish ecommerce was 46% in the category ‘Fashion’, 62% in the category ‘Electronics’, 71% in the ‘Child’ category, and a huge 74% in the category ‘Home & Garden’.
The Polish Ecommerce Opportunity
Although online sales currently account only for 4.5% of the local retail industry, Poland is amongst the fastest developing ecommerce markets in Europe, growing at a rate of 22.6% year-on-year. As a comparison, the annual growth rates of two of the most well-established online markets, such as the US and the UK are 14.5% and 15.8%, respectively.
Mobile plays an important role in the Polish ecommerce landscape, with 11 million Poles surfing the Internet using their smartphones or tablets, and almost 5 million Polish consumers having bought a product or service using a mobile device.
It is no surprise, then, that online retail in the country is set to reach nearly PLN 60 billion by 2019, compared to only PLN 30 billion today, while the m-commerce market is expected to be worth around PLN 2.5 billion by the end of 2015, an increase of 113% based on the previous year.
What does Allegro’s offering include?
Although Allegro represents a lucrative selling channel for products in any category, the ‘Fashion’ vertical is particularly one to watch for, as fashion brands represent the most popular search results on the platform.
To further boost its presence in the fashion ecommerce vertical, Allegro has developed a special channel dedicated to fashion brands, called Brand Zone, where manufacturers sell their products directly or through authorised distributors.
With mobile sales in Poland growing by more than 60% annually, Allegro has also adopted a highly mobile-focused online strategy. As a result, Allegro’s mobile application has been downloaded over 6 million times, while the value of transactions concluded via Allegro’s mobile version accounts for nearly 80% of the total value of Polish m-commerce.
How to get started on Allegro?
You can of course simply sign up as a retailer on Allegro, however unless you speak Polish it’s not likely to be an easy experience so in this case it’s worth using a third party to assist. Pentagon are experts in launching brands and retailers on global marketplaces, and can fast track your international growth by setting-up and managing your store directly on Allegro.
Pentagon provide a technical advisor to manage the integration between your company and Allegro, an account manger to oversee the day-to-day running of your brand store, optimise product titles and boost sales, a translations service to align all product descriptions and titles with local language nuances, and customer services support to ensure the expectations of local shoppers are met.
If you would like to find out more about how Pentagon can help your brand sell international, get in touch with the team on [email protected], call them on +44 (0)20 8940 5392 or visit their website.
3 Responses
Disappointed, I thought this was about that iconic BL car the Austin Allegro – are there any still on the road?
I had understood that you needed a payu account to trade on allegro, requiring a polish bank account for merchant services. Is this no longer the case?