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Marketplace Talk: June's ecommerce news 2026

Ana Scarabelli
25 June 2026
Stay up-to-date on June 2026's ecommerce trends, including Prime Day forecasts, TikTok Shop expansions, and Bol's new selling incentives.
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Marketplace Talk: June's ecommerce news 2026
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🛒 Amazon Prime Day forecast: $26.3 billion in US e-commerce over four days


Amazon's Prime Day runs from June 23–26, and is projected to generate $26.3 billion in US e-commerce sales, up 9% on last year, according to Adobe estimates. Moving the sale earlier than ever hasn't kept rivals away: over 60% of shoppers plan to check Walmart and over 40% will look at Target, with Costco, Best Buy and Temu also in the mix. Consumers are deal-hunting, not brand-loyal — nearly half say inflation makes them more likely to shop the event.

The back-to-school angle is significant this year. Adobe expects Prime Day to kickstart early spending on children's clothing, luggage, car seats and portable chargers. Meanwhile, Amazon's grip on apparel continues to tighten: Wells Fargo estimates Amazon will sell around $78 billion in apparel and footwear in the US this year, over 44% of all online apparel sales in the country, and more than double Walmart's figures in the category.

"Prime Day has become one of the most important moments in the ecommerce calendar, and not just for Amazon sellers. Brands across all channels need to be visible and competitive during these windows because shoppers are actively comparing prices everywhere. If your listings, pricing, and stock aren't in order going into this sale, you're leaving money on the table."

🛍️ Bol's new quality score and commission reward programme reshape the economics of selling in the Benelux


On June 24th, bol's new quality score officially replaced the performance score in the buy box. The new system measures performance over 22 weeks across five service standards, adding returns and customer questions to the original three criteria. The longer window brings more stability, but introduces a critical catch: fall below the minimum on any single standard and your overall score cannot reach 70, regardless of how well you perform on the others. Sellers need a score of at least 65 to remain in good standing; 70 is the threshold for additional benefits and the entry requirement for what launched on July 1st.

That's Groeibeloning, bol's new commission reward programme. Partners who meet personalised revenue targets receive increasing discounts on their variable commission rate, up to 10–15% off. For a seller turning over €1 million at a 10% variable rate, that's €10,000–15,000 back per year. More structurally, bol is creating a two-tier cost structure where top performers pay less per transaction than competitors selling identical products on the same shelf. Eligibility is limited to partners active on bol for at least two years who meet the quality and delivery criteria.

"ChannelEngine has been a Gold Partner of bol since 2018, and changes like this are exactly where that experience counts. The weakest leg rule is the detail most likely to catch strong sellers off guard: one underperforming metric caps your entire score, no matter how clean the rest of your operation looks. If bol is a meaningful channel for your business and you want to understand where you stand and what it takes to land inside Groeibeloning, our team is ready to help."
Mitchell_ChannelEngine-1Mitchell Dröge,
Alliance Manager ChannelEngine-Logo-Horizontal-Default

🎵 TikTok Shop goes pan-European with four new markets and a single-registration selling feature


TikTok Shop launched in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland on June 15th, bringing its European footprint to ten markets. The expansion follows a rapid rollout that began in the UK in 2021 and accelerated through Spain, Ireland, Germany, France, and Italy, markets where TikTok Shop has already surpassed 100,000 sellers and delivered triple-digit daily GMV growth between August 2025 and February 2026.

What makes this expansion structurally significant is the accompanying 'Sell Across Europe' feature. Shortly after launch, merchants will be able to sell across all available EU markets through a single TikTok Shop registration, with localized product descriptions, TikTok-partnered logistics, and access to the creator network across borders. It's the same multi-market-from-one-setup model that has made Amazon the default choice for cross-border sellers in Europe, and TikTok is now building it at speed.

"This is a milestone we've been working towards for a while, and one that opens up a new way for brands to reach and convert shoppers. TikTok Shop is now live across ten European markets, and brands can sell directly through shoppable videos and livestreams, turning content into conversions without ever leaving the platform. We're proud to be a TikTok Shop Launching Partner, meaning brands can use ChannelEngine to connect, manage, and scale their TikTok Shop operations alongside all their other marketplaces from a single platform."

🛒 Kaufland expanding to Spain and the Netherlands, reaching 220 million consumers


Kaufland is bringing its marketplace to Spain and the Netherlands by end of summer, taking its total market count to nine. The German hypermarket chain, part of the Schwarz Group alongside Lidl, launched its marketplace in 2021 and has expanded steadily since, adding France and Italy last year. With 32 million monthly visitors in Germany and 45 million products across 6,400 categories, it has built serious scale in its home market.

The growth numbers from its newer markets are hard to ignore: Austria is up 439% in revenue compared to 2024, Poland up 322%, both marketplaces just two years old. The Spain and Netherlands launches will push Kaufland's potential consumer reach from 139 million to 220 million, making it the largest marketplace network of European origin. Sellers who register now gain access to all nine markets at once, with built-in support for local language translations, customer service, and payment processing.

"ChannelEngine already supports Kaufland in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and the Netherlands and Spain are next. If you want to be among the first to go live in these new markets, now is the time to start onboarding. The sellers who move early tend to benefit most from the visibility that comes with a fresh marketplace launch."

📦 Amazon cracks down on inaccurate handling times, with automatic overrides starting June 29


From June 29th, Amazon will begin flagging self-fulfilled SKUs where the stated handling time is consistently longer than the actual shipping speed. Sellers who don't update within 30 days risk having Amazon manage those SKUs on their behalf. The trigger is straightforward: if a SKU ships at least one day faster than the configured handling time on a consistent basis, it gets flagged.

The business case behind the push is clear. Amazon says more than 87% of seller-fulfilled US orders are handled within a day, yet many sellers set longer handling times than needed, resulting in delivery promises that are slower than reality. According to Amazon, every one-day improvement in promised delivery time leads to an average 5% increase in sales. Sellers can either enable Amazon's automated handling time setting, which adjusts based on shipping history, or manually set times at the SKU level and have them evaluated over a 30-day window.

📦 Amazon doubles down on the UK with €46 billion investment plan


Amazon invested over €17 billion in the UK last year, part of a broader commitment to spend €46 billion in the country by the end of 2027. The investment includes four new warehouses in central and northern England, adding to an already substantial footprint of around 75,000 employees. UK revenues reached €34 billion in 2025, confirming the UK as Amazon's third-largest market globally, behind only the US and Germany.

The scale of investment signals long-term confidence in the UK market and mirrors a similar move in France, where Amazon recently announced €15 billion in investment over three years. For sellers, more warehouse capacity means faster fulfilment, broader reach, and a logistics network that will be harder than ever to compete with outside of Amazon's own ecosystem.

"When Amazon commits tens of billions to warehouse infrastructure in a market, it's not just a logistics story. It's a signal about where consumer expectations are heading: faster delivery, wider selection, lower friction. Sellers who aren't building their Amazon presence in the UK and France right now are going to find it increasingly difficult to match what shoppers will come to expect as standard."

📈 German ecommerce heads for €96 billion, but growth is concentrating at the top


Germany's ecommerce market is on track to reach €96.3 billion this year, up 4.3%, nearly three times the growth rate of physical retail. The German Retail Federation (HDE) calls ecommerce the "growth engine of retail," with marketplaces already accounting for 56.7% of all online sales and their share still rising.

But not everyone is benefiting equally. A significant slice of that spending flows to international platforms: Shein and Temu alone generate an estimated €4.7 billion in Germany, and 65% of German consumers have bought from a foreign online store at least once. HDE's deputy managing director has called out the uneven playing field directly, arguing that policymakers need to enforce meaningful penalties, not just set rules, to ensure fair competition. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to dominate domestically, growing German sales 12.3% last year while many smaller online retailers have seen revenues decline.

"Germany remains one of the most important ecommerce markets in Europe, but the growth story is increasingly a tale of two worlds. Brands that aren't actively competing on the major marketplaces and optimising their presence there are effectively ceding ground to platforms that are. The concentration of spend at the top is only going in one direction."
Caro quote boxCaroline Chergui,
Manager of Sales
ChannelEngine-Logo-Horizontal-Default

🌍 Turkey leads Europe's ecommerce growth race, with Eastern markets closing the gap


Turkey tops a new ECDB ranking of fastest-growing European ecommerce markets, with projected average annual growth of 12.9% through 2029. Bulgaria follows closely at 12.5%, with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Malta sharing third place at 10.0%. The pattern is clear: Eastern and Southeastern Europe is where the growth action is.

The drivers are structural. In many of these markets, ecommerce adoption is still relatively early-stage, and marketplace infrastructure continues to offer substantial headroom. Turkey stands out not just for its growth rate but for its scale, with around 86 million people and online spending already at approximately €86 billion last year, combining size with momentum. Bulgaria, by contrast, remains underpenetrated, but with Zalando set to launch there soon, outside attention is picking up.

"Markets like Turkey and Bulgaria are exactly where ambitious brands should be looking right now. The combination of low penetration, growing infrastructure, and increasing marketplace activity creates a window that won't stay open forever. Sellers who move early into these markets tend to build a structural advantage that's hard for latecomers to close."

🤖 Amazon adds AI image generator to search, letting shoppers describe what they want and buy what they see


Amazon has integrated an AI image generator into its Shopping app, allowing customers to describe a product in their own words and receive generated images to shop from. The tool refines its output with each word added, filtering by criteria like pattern, colour, and texture. For now it covers apparel and home goods, with more categories planned.

The launch is part of a broader push to make Amazon's search experience more visual and conversational. Alongside the image generator, Amazon debuted a "Shop by Style" tool that creates AI-generated shoppable collages sorted by aesthetic. It follows a string of recent launches: Alexa for Shopping rolled out last month as an AI assistant embedded in the main search bar, and in April Amazon introduced AI-generated audio hosts that answer product questions by voice or text.

🚚 DHL Globalmail suspends EU shipments from UK as new customs rules bite


From June 24th, UK sellers using DHL Globalmail can no longer ship low-value parcels to EU consumers. DHL does not yet have a Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) solution in place for the EU's new customs requirements taking effect July 1st, meaning it cannot handle the flat €3 fee that senders, not recipients, will be required to pay on parcels valued up to €150.

The disruption is partial: DHL Express remains unaffected, and sellers holding inventory inside the EU are not impacted. But for brands still relying on cross-border parcel services from the UK, the suspension is a sharp reminder that the end of the low-value import exemption is no longer a future concern. It's here.

🟠 easyGroup enters online retail with easyShop.com — a 21-country marketplace launching in Q4


easyGroup, the brand group behind easyJet, easyHotel and a string of other consumer businesses, is launching easyShop.com, a new online marketplace set to go live across 21 European countries in Q4 2026. The platform is built on OnBuy's proprietary OnCommerce technology and will operate as a pure marketplace, meaning no retail competition from the operator itself. Seller onboarding begins ahead of the consumer launch, giving early movers visibility from day one.

The partnership brings together two complementary strengths: easyGroup's pan-European brand recognition and OnBuy's marketplace infrastructure, which already supports over 100 million products across Europe and has grown more than 86% over the past three years. For retailers, the proposition is straightforward: simultaneous access to 21 markets without the usual complexity of building local infrastructure country by country.

Published on 25 June 2026
Ana Scarabelli
Ana Clara Scarabelli is a Social Media Specialist at ChannelEngine. Ana is passionate about communication, branding, and marketing. She has a background in Journalism, coupled with content marketing experience.
Ana Scarabelli
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