What is Kaufland

 

 

Similarly to Walmart in the US, Kaufland is a German chain of hypermarkets complete with a fully fledged online marketplace. Owned by the Schwarz Gruppe, Kaufland has physical stores in eight countries including Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania. The online marketplace is available in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia as well as Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

 

As of 2024, the online marketplace is expanding into two new countries: Poland and Austria. While Poland already has physical Kaufland stores, Austria will be a purely online market for the company.

 

 

Screenshot of the homepage of kaufland.com, the company’s international website

 

 

Kaufland.de in numbers

With global net sales of $324.4 million and 28.5 million monthly visitors, kaufland.de is one of the most popular online marketplaces in Germany.

 

Meanwhile, Kaufland’s parent company Schwarz Gruppe reports a 7.8% increase of revenue for Kaufland in the last fiscal year, amounting to a whopping 34.2 billion euros. However, revenue generated by online sales shrank to 1.7 billion euros (down by 9.4% from the previous year), which, according to the report, is in line with general post-COVID e-Commerce trends in Germany.

 

Interestingly, Schwarz also owns another popular German brand, Lidl. A popular discount grocery store, Lidl operates online marketplaces in several countries as well. These are so successful that Lidl is one of the most popular platforms for cross-border commerce in Europe.

 

 

Shopping and selling on kaufland.de

Kaufland.de is a general online store, offering a wide array of products like groceries, electronics, fashion, sports, personal care, furniture, car parts and gardening equipment. The marketplace provides all kinds of payment options, including credit cards, PayPal and Klarna.

 

Kaufland.de works with third party sellers from anywhere in the world who need to register with the marketplace for a selling spot. Kaufland requires its sellers to have all the necessary legal documentation in the markets their products will be available in, which for example includes displaying a VAT number in Germany.

 

The marketplace verifies the uploaded information before allowing the seller to proceed. In addition to documents, sellers need to fulfil certain requirements. These include product descriptions and customer service in the country’s native language. 

 

Find out all about the seller verification process!

 

Kaufland provides its sellers with assistance when it comes to various aspects of selling, like first-line customer service and product ads. In addition, the company also offers fulfilment, which means that Kaufland takes over storage, handling, shipping, customer service and returns management from sellers.

 

Learn how fulfilment works.

 

 

Online vs physical

It’s a common misconception in the case of Walmart that people shopping on the online marketplace have access to the same products as in physical stores. While there’s surely some overlap, it’s important to note that the online platform is a regular marketplace with third party sellers, which means that there’s a higher chance of accidentally purchasing fake products than in the better regulated physical store.

 

This is also true for Kaufland’s online marketplace. However, Kaufland found a way to help customers differentiate between the physical and online stores.

 

Customers on kaufland.de have the option to choose which product selection to view: that of the online marketplace or that of a specific physical hypermarket.

 

 

Screenshot of kaufland.de displaying the option to choose products from the online marketplace or a physical store

 

 

In the latter case, people have to pick an actual store to be led to the products available there. While shoppers can’t buy products online from the chosen physical location, it’s a convenient way to compare stock and learn more about the products available.

 

 

Screenshot of a random product listing on kaufland.de displaying the product’s availabilities in a physical store

 

 

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Advantages and disadvantages of Kaufland for brands

Featuring your products on kaufland.de could come with significant advantages. As Kaufland is a well-known and trusted brand in Germany and several other European countries, appearing on the marketplace could extend that trust to your brand as well. Similarly, Kaufland’s established presence across various European markets could significantly aid your market entry into those markets. This enables small businesses and local sellers to expand their reach without substantial costs and efforts.

 

In addition, Kaufland verifies each seller before activating their account on the marketplace, thus lowering the chances of fraudulent vendors accessing the platform.

 

Learn all about the different types of marketplace verification.

 

However, some dubious sellers may take the time to collect and submit all the necessary documents (or good-quality forgeries of them), and may become eligible for a selling spot on kaufland.de. Considering that around 10,000 sellers are active on the marketplace in over 6,400 product categories, fraudsters may take their chances and try to remain hidden amongst the honest sellers.

 

This is especially true in the case of fulfillment. With such easy access to other markets, even some of your authorised sellers may be tempted to enter a country they’re not supposed to sell in. And voila, a grey market is created.

 

Find out what grey markets are and how to dismantle them!

 

 

How to protect your brand on kaufland.de

As you can see, large online marketplaces that work with third party sellers always carry a risk of allowing dubious sellers onto their platforms. This is why you need to set up a comprehensive online brand protection programme to detect IP infringing sellers and products before they’ve had a chance to cause your brand a lot of damage.

 

globaleyez’s marketplace monitoring service aims to do just that. With keyword-based monitoring, our in-house software traxster detects infringing product listings on over 150 marketplaces worldwide, kaufland.de included.

 

Since fraudsters often work with image-based content, we recommend a round of image monitoring as well to discover ads and product pictures that feature your IP protected imagery. Our findings also include similar images that fraudsters created to let customers believe they’re looking at your original products.

 

Test purchases may be necessary to find out more about the origins of a product, and uncover crucial information about the seller. This is especially helpful when we’re trying to trace your original products sold in grey markets.

 

Finally, we can enforce your rights and demand the removal of any infringing content, including product listings, ads, etc from the internet.

 

Incorporating all the above services and more, our clean marketplaces solution aims to provide a fitting environment for your products where no counterfeit, lookalike, grey market, and otherwise damaging product listings crowd the marketplace. This allows your original products to shine.

 

 

Conclusion

Kaufland.de is a trusted marketplace in several European countries. However, despite Kaufland’s best efforts, fraudulent sellers may still try to infiltrate the platform and infringe on your IP rights.

 

Don’t let this go unnoticed; contact us and let’s devise an effective online brand protection strategy together!