Polish e-commerce giant Allegro – which is the leading player on its domestic market – has expanded its brand to a third country in the region after launching the Allegro.sk shopping platform in Slovakia.
Allegro, which is also one of Europe’s largest e-commerce platforms, has since 2022 already been operating in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia under different names after acquiring the MALL, WE|DO, Mimovrste and CZC brands.
Last year, it began to expand its own brand in the region by launching Allegro.cz in the Czech Republic, and now it has done the same in Slovakia.
The company claims that the new e-commerce portal will give Slovaks access to 100 million listings in one place, “ten times more than any other online shop operating in Slovakia”.
The new platform, like those in the Czech Republic and Poland, will allow sellers to “list once, sell everywhere” where the brand is present.
Allegro says it has 19 million “active buyers” across the region, including 14.6 million in Poland. In the fourth quarter of 2023, its Czech platform Allegro.cz, which was launched in May of that year, doubled the number of active buyers quarter-on-quarter to 1.6 million.
“Polish businesses are eagerly looking for new customers abroad,” said Matthias Frechen, Allegro’s chief commercial officer. “That is why we want to make it easier for them to enter new markets…by providing them with the tools they need to trade in a cross-border model.”
In Europe's biggest IPO this year, and largest ever in Poland, shares in Allegro jumped 65% after it listed on Warsaw's stock exchange today, giving the firm a market value of $17.4 billion and putting it ahead of CD Projekt as Poland’s largest listed firm https://t.co/kx1yWS1jyq
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 12, 2020
Within the next two years, Allegro plans to launch own-brand platforms in Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Last year, Allegro recorded 10.25 billion zloty (€2.37 billion) in revenue, up by 13.8% year on year, and 284 million zloty (€65.7) in net profit. In Poland alone, its sellers sold 54.8 billion zloty worth of goods last year, up by 11% year on year, the company said.
In 2020, Allegro debuted on the Warsaw stock exchange in what was Poland’s largest IPO to date and Europe’s biggest that year. Like many e-commerce platform, the firm saw its revenues soar during the pandemic, prompting it to seek to expand internationally.
Poland's leading e-commerce player, Allegro, has posted a rise in net profits above analysts' forecasts.
It has also outlined plans for international expansion, including an English version of its marketplace and more sales to other EU countries https://t.co/qlX1Bn5Rnf
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 6, 2021
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Main image credit: Allegro Press Kit
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
