Whether a marketplace will take you depends on the business, its country of establishment and the platform. Before launch, agree who handles tax, imports, product safety, packaging, returns and local customer service for the actual stock route.
This guide covers two things: what each platform asks for, and the obligations that come with selling into the EU whoever the seller is. Then it compares the three routes in. It is not tax or legal advice. Use it as a map of the work, and take the specifics to your own advisers.
Who the marketplaces accept
You can register from outside the EU on all of them except OTTO. Expect more verification than a European seller faces, and in two cases a separate door.
- Amazon accepts sellers established outside the EU on its European marketplaces. Registering is generally the least of the work. The identity and business verification simply runs longer.
- bol.com separates the two cases at registration. Sellers based in the Netherlands or Belgium register directly. Other EU-established companies register as EU partners, with the commercial-register entry and VAT number of their own country, and only through a one-time invitation from bol. There is no open sign-up. Sellers established outside the EU are handled case by case rather than through open sign-up, and that assessment is slow.
- OTTO does not accept sellers established outside the EU. Its marketplace only takes companies with their registered office in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, France or Spain, one of the legal forms OTTO accepts there, and their own VAT ID from that country.
- Kaufland. EU sellers can use the applicable local VAT registration or OSS route. Non-EU sellers must meet Kaufland’s local tax-registration requirements for each market.
- Allegro is the strictest of those that accept them, and the most explicit about it. Sellers established outside the EEA, Switzerland, Ukraine and the UK register through a heavier process: documents in English and in the company's native language, plus identity checks for payment KYC. They are also limited to one account with a maximum of 500 offers. That is a published rule, not a soft guideline. It caps what a non-EEA brand can build on the Polish market on its own.
So, OTTO aside, the account can be had. It is also the cheapest thing on the list.
The obligations
These duties attach to selling into the EU, not to being European. They do not go away because the seller is registered in Delaware, Dubai or Zug. Someone has to carry each of them.
- VAT where the stock sits. Holding inventory in a European country generally creates a VAT registration obligation in that country, and it is per country. Since the marketplace deemed-supplier rules came in, platforms collect VAT on certain consumer sales by non-EU sellers, and reporting schemes such as OSS and IOSS simplify the filing. Neither removes a registration that holding stock has triggered. Depending on the country, a non-EU business may also need a fiscal representative, plus an EORI number and a clear importer-of-record arrangement for goods crossing the border.
- A responsible person for product safety. Under the General Product Safety Regulation, applicable since 13 December 2024, consumer products sold to EU buyers need an economic operator established in the EU whose details appear with the listing. No responsible person, no compliant listing.
- Extended producer responsibility. Packaging and, for some categories, electricals and batteries have to be registered before selling. Germany's LUCID registration under the packaging law is the clearest case: mandatory before listing, with no minimum volume, and marketplaces do block listings over it. France and others run their own schemes through eco-organisations. "We are too small for this yet" is not a category that exists.
- A European returns address. Buyers return things. A return that has to cross an ocean is not a return route. It is a refund policy in disguise, and platform metrics will read it as poor service.
- Local language content and service. Dutch on bol with French for Belgium, Polish on Allegro, German for Kaufland and Amazon.de. OTTO requires German-speaking customer service. Machine-translated listings read as machine-translated. Buyer questions arrive in the buyer's language, whatever the seller would prefer.
None of this is exotic. It is a European operation, and it exists whether or not the brand has built it.
The three routes, compared
Sell to a distributor
The simplest thing a foreign brand can do: sell pallets to a European buyer and let the obligations become theirs, because they are now the seller. It is the right route when volume is the goal and the brand's European future is negotiable. The cost is control. Pricing, presentation, which marketplaces, which countries and the customer relationship all transfer with the goods. Brands that later want their European presence back often find their own products competing against them at prices they never chose.
Open your own accounts, with or without an agency
The right route when Europe is core strategy and you will resource it properly. You keep every login and every decision. You also take on every obligation above: the registrations, the responsible person, the EPR schemes, the returns, the service in five languages. An agency working inside your accounts changes who does the marketing work, not who carries the obligations or the liability. Choose this when Europe is worth hiring for, and be clear that it is a second company inside your company.
Sell through an operator on its own accounts
An operator already established in Europe sells your products through its own marketplace accounts, under its own marketplace and VAT registrations. The product-side duties of safety documentation, labelling and packaging registration are checked in the plan before anything ships, and who registers what is settled there. This is the model we run at K6: your stock ships to Rotterdam and stays your property, we sell it on the marketplaces in the agreed plan, and one Dutch partner pays the net amount out to you. K6 runs the seller accounts. Tax, import and product responsibilities are checked for the actual stock route before launch. The plan, meaning marketplaces, products and rules, is agreed before anything goes live. How the brand appears stays under your approval. Enter Europe sets out exactly what that covers.
Which one fits
Pick the distributor if you want one-off volume and can live with losing the shelf. Your own accounts, if Europe is strategy and you will staff it. Once the team exists, that route is genuinely better than the alternatives. An operator, if you want Europe run seriously and soon without building a European company to do it. The trade-offs behind each are laid out in more detail in own accounts, agency or distributor. Once the route is chosen, the next decision is sequencing, and the expansion order that works explains why we push almost every brand to prove one market before opening five.
If you would rather have the answer for your own range than a general map, the Brand Review is free, in writing, within five working days.