Allegro: ready to expand beyond Poland

Allegro, the major online marketplace from Poland, is ready to expand internationally. This is what CEO Francois Nuyts says, in a time of rumors about Amazon entering Poland.

Allegro is like the Amazon of Poland. The marketplace, founded in 1999, has over 12.3 million active buyers and is used by around 117,000 merchants. It’s the number one destination for Polish consumers looking to buy something online.

Will Amazon compete with Allegro in Poland?

This might change, however, if Amazon decides to launch a dedicated platform in Poland. And these rumors exist. There are reports claiming that Amazon could launch a Polish service within weeks.

Amazon could launch a Polish service within weeks.

But Allegro doesn’t seem so afraid of Amazon’s possible arrival in Poland. “There are many things we believe we do quite well, if not better, than any competitors”, the Allegro CEO said in an interview with AFP.

Allegro will list on the Warsaw Stock Exchange this Monday. The IPO will value the ecommerce company at around 9.4 billion euros. The company plans to raise around 217 million euros and will use the proceeds to repay debt.

Plans for more warehouses

Currently, Allegro has one mid-sizes warehouse, but plans are to open a larger one along with four smaller warehouses. This seems like not much, but Nuyts explains how over 90 percent of products sold on Allegro.pl never go through one of its warehouses: they just move directly from seller to buyer.

Over 90 percent of products sold on Allegro never go through one of its warehouses.

Allegro would love to expand abroad

When asked about a possible expansion of Allegro, Nuyts says that they would love to go abroad. “It would be a shame if we didn’t find a way to have more customers and sellers internationally.” At the moment, Allegro already exports, mostly catering for large Polish diasporas in countries such as the United Kingdom.

The CEO thinks that the European Union and national governments should help ensure a level playing field with competitors such as China. He has the idea that the rules are not the same, thereby referring to shipping rates being subsidized by the Chinese government and VAT avoidance.