This complete guide to selling on Kaufland.de was written by Nethansa, the largest marketplace service and solution provider in Central and Eastern Europe.
Kaufland is a well-renowned brand originating from Germany, and its brick-and-mortar supermarkets attract customers across eight European countries. Recently the brand owners decided to expand their activity and launched a marketplace called Kaufland.de.
It was an answer to dynamically changing shopping habits. Nowadays, more and more customers are enticed by the convenience associated with shopping on marketplaces. Kaufland.de decided to monetise that by offering an attractive and easily accessible sales platform where a variety of goods can be sold and purchased.
However, Kaufland is not the only beneficiary of that transformation. This marketplace is an inclusive place where any business entity can sell its products under the umbrella of a well-known and trusted brand.
What is Kaufland.de?
As it has already been mentioned, Kaufland.de is a German marketplace. It belongs to the Schwarz Group which is one of the leading trading companies worldwide. In the past, the marketplace was known as Real.de and rebranded in the middle of April 2021.
Marketplace vs. brick & mortar stores
There are approximately 1350 Kaufland supermarkets selling around 30 000 products across eight European countries. On the other hand, according to Kaufland.de, the marketplace offers over 40 000 000 products within 5000 categories.
Kaufland’s supermarkets should not be confused with the marketplace. Although both are connected because of their functioning within the Schwarz Group, they operate separately.
Additionally, selling on the marketplace will not automatically qualify you for selling in traditional stores. To try doing that, a separate application should be submitted. Successful sales on Kaufland.de might have a positive impact on the final decision made by the Kaufland supermarket.
Growth potential
Kaufland.de is a fast-growing sales channel. Its GMV has been skyrocketing and has grown by +92% on average over the last five years. To picture the scale, imagine that within the same period German e-commerce had grown only by +13%. The difference is massive and means that Kaufland.de grows 7 times faster than the domestic industry as a whole.
Who can sell and where
Kaufland.de is not exclusive and everyone who wants to start selling there has to meet just a few requirements. However, you need to bear in mind that the marketplace operates so far only in Germany, but already confirmed further expansion to the Czech Republic and Slovakia for 2023. The shortlist of requirements for sellers is presented below:
- a registered business seller,
- ensuring customer service communication in German (at least in writing),
- providing product content in German,
- offering products that have an official EAN code (GTIN),
- being able to ship products to Germany and handle returns,
- being registered through VAT OSS or VAT in Germany.
Before you start selling
After considering the choice of Kaufland.de and ensuring you meet the requirements set on sellers, you can take steps to start selling on the platform. Learn more about the registration and payment processes
How to register on Kaufland.de
You can register as a seller any time by visiting www.kaufland.de/becomeaseller. During the registration process, you will be asked to provide certain documents, such as an ID card of a company representative, a business licence, a trade register extract or details and proof of beneficial owner(s).
Before becoming a seller, Kaufland.de has to verify your seller’s account. If you filled out the registration form correctly, the process would go smoothly and take from 1 up to 3 business days.
How much does selling on Kaufland.de cost?
The total cost of selling on Kaufland.de is calculated based on the monthly fees and commission from successful sales. At the time of writing, a monthly subscription fee is €39.95 and includes features such as setting unlimited product listings, diverse marketing or personal support. For an additional €10 per month, you could link your online store to the Kaufland.de seller account.
In addition, there is a commission-based cost. The value varies from 7% to 12.5% depending on the offered product. However, it will be added only in case of successful sales. It means the commission won’t be charged if the order is returned or cancelled. It is also worth mentioning that you can cancel your plan at any time.
Pay-out
As a potential seller, you probably wonder what rules apply regarding payments. Luckily, the answer is straightforward as you are the one who decides how often and what amount to withdraw from the seller’s account. However, there is one rule to follow.
In the seller account, you would see two amounts. The pre-booked balance and released balance. Whenever someone buys your product, the money would be located on the pre-booked balance and will be frozen for the revocation period that lasts 14 days. After that time, you have the freedom to withdraw as much money, as often as you wish.
Inside the Seller Portal on Kaufland.de
After having the seller account verified, you can log in and add your products. In this part, you would find information on uploading offers, creating a product feed, and the basics of the sellers’ portal on Kaufland.de.
What does the selling process look like
The selling process on Kaufland.de is quite simple. After successful registration, you have to create a listing of your product via EAN. Then, Kaufland.de provides automated marketing services to generate awareness and traffic on your page.
Whenever someone buys your product, the payment processing and fraud checks are handled by Kaufland.de. Money due from the customers is transferred to your seller’s account in the later steps, as described earlier.
Successful payment processing will result in sending you the shipping information. From that point, you are responsible to deliver the ordered goods to the customer. In addition, you can adjust shipment times and fees freely to match your logistics costs and capabilities.
Product data vs. offer data
Two data sheets should be mentioned when talking about listing preparation – product data and offer data. To create a valid offer, you have to provide product data first. Unsurprisingly, it is the description of the offered product. It consists of mandatory attributes such as EAN, product category, title, description, manufacturer and pictures.
As it has already been mentioned, the successful creation of the product data is required to create an offer data. The latter has to include EAN, condition, price and delivery time. Although some fields are not mandatory, it is a good practice to provide as much detailed information as possible. It might have a beneficial impact on your listing.
Uploading products & integration opportunities
There are four ways to upload your offers to the marketplace. The upload method should be made depending on the size of your inventory. The larger your product portfolio is the more automated the upload method you should choose. Have your sales taken care of by the official Kaufland.de partner.
The following are four product upload methods:
- software interface or middleware solutions,
- Kaufland.de API documentation for in-house developments,
- CSV files for product and offer data,
- manual listing via Seller Portal.
Buy Box
Similarly to other marketplaces, Kaufland.de imposes selling on the principle of the buy box. Price, shipping cost and delivery time have the biggest impact on your offers being in the buy box. The most important factor is price. However, it might happen that the cheapest product will not qualify due to the lengthy shipping time. This is why logistics should not be overlooked while planning sales.
Paying attention to the fact that price is the most important factor, you should consider using dynamic pricing software. It helps greatly with keeping an eye on your competitors and managing thousands of prices automatically. It will get you the best shot at winning the buy box race!
Fulfilment by Merchant only
Bear in mind that Kaufland.de currently offers no fulfilment services. In order to sell successfully, you have to use third-party fulfilment services or be ready to secure warehousing and logistics on your own. It’s safe to assume that along with the growth of the marketplace, fulfilment by Kaufland.de will be offered.
Selling on Kaufland.de – summary
Although Kaufland.de operates only on the German market, the sellers from around the world could offer their products there. It certainly presents great business opportunities for merchants from all neighbouring countries. However, to provide competitive offers, overseas sellers have to put extra effort to maintain low shipping times and costs.
Is Kaufland.de a good option for the UK sellers?
The first questions popping into the minds of potential sellers operating from the UK are profitability and post-Brexit custom and legal requirements. Is it possible to enter the German market under such conditions? To maximise the success rate, you can use the help of professional sales support companies which have advanced technology at their disposal.
One way to optimise costs is to use fulfilment services outside the UK. It will allow you to send larger shipments, which in turn will lessen the paperwork required and costs of shipping per product. Then, single orders would be taken care of by the third party. Such a method guarantees low costs and short delivery times.
As you can see, careful planning and finding the sweet spot between price and shipping logistics could give you the leverage. The encouraging fact is that Kaufland.de is an extremely fast-growing market. A great number of customers and high potential profits make selling on Kaufland.de tempting. Will you join the party?
