Seven out of ten online purchases in Europe involving buyers and sellers based in different countries take place through a marketplace. This figure, published in the Top 100 Cross-Border Marketplaces Europe Report, highlights how these platforms are no longer simply an alternative sales channel to a company’s own e-commerce website. Export marketplaces have become gateways to international markets, each serving a different purpose throughout a company’s internationalisation journey.
Understanding their role therefore means designing a channel architecture in which each marketplace addresses a specific objective: gaining experience in a foreign market, testing products and services tailored to that channel, or generating new leads.
Types of Export Marketplaces
International generalist marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay continue to offer the fastest route to established consumer demand. Being present on these platforms allows an Italian company to quickly assess whether a product is competitive across multiple markets, while benefiting from their logistics services, payment systems and established consumer trust.
The downside is that a brand’s identity can become diluted amid price-based competition, while the relationship with the customer remains largely mediated by the platform.
Alongside these global players, local marketplaces are playing an increasingly important role in digital export and are often essential for entering specific countries. In markets such as Poland, the Netherlands and Japan, platforms including Allegro, bol.com and Rakuten are not merely alternatives to Amazon; they are established market standards.
For an exporting company, these marketplaces facilitate local adaptation. They enable businesses to engage with country-specific purchasing habits, payment systems and delivery expectations, reducing the risks associated with an overly standardised international approach.
A third category consists of vertical marketplaces, whose purpose in digital export is not so much to “sell more” as to sell in the right place. In the European fashion market, platforms such as Zalando operate as ecosystems combining sales, data and logistics services.
In the luxury sector, operators such as Farfetch and 1stDibs provide brand-positioning environments in which companies can engage with a carefully selected, high-spending audience. In the beauty industry, platforms such as Notino serve a similar purpose. In all these cases, the marketplace contributes not only to revenue generation but also to building the brand’s international reputation.
TikTok Shop: A New Marketplace for Digital Export
TikTok Shop fits into this broader landscape while representing a genuine departure from the traditional concept of an export marketplace.
Particularly in product categories such as fashion and cosmetics, TikTok Shop is not simply a place where transactions take place. It is a hybrid model that combines marketplace infrastructure with mechanisms similar to affiliate marketing. Its defining feature, however, is that sales originate from discovery rather than search—a model commonly referred to as “Discovery Commerce”.
The first step for a company wishing to sell through TikTok Shop is to open a merchant account and address the tax and regulatory compliance requirements of the countries in which it intends to operate.
Once this stage has been completed, the merchant uploads a product catalogue to the platform. Unlike traditional marketplaces, the TikTok Shop catalogue is not primarily designed to be actively browsed by users. Instead, products are “activated” through content. For this reason, merchants should generally select a limited number of products that lend themselves particularly well to visual demonstrations.
The merchant then provides visual and video materials showing the product in use, communicating its benefits and making it easier for TikTok creators to incorporate it into their content.
Creators can select products from the merchant’s catalogue, promote them through videos or live streams, and earn a commission on each sale they generate.
Shipping can be managed directly by the merchant through its own warehouse or a European logistics partner. Alternatively, where available, the company may use fulfilment services managed by TikTok.
In either case, logistics is far from a neutral factor. Delivery times, service quality and returns management directly affect a product’s visibility on the platform.
Payments are also fully integrated. TikTok manages the checkout process, collects payment from the end customer and transfers the proceeds to the merchant after deducting the applicable commissions and agreed fees.
Discovery Commerce
From a digital export perspective, one of the most significant features of TikTok Shop is the volume of data it provides.
Merchants can analyse which types of content drive conversions, which creators perform best in a particular country, and which products achieve the strongest results depending on their price point or storytelling format.
Like more traditional export marketplaces, TikTok Shop can therefore serve as an international market laboratory, generating insights that can also inform other channels, such as a company’s own e-commerce platform or traditional distribution networks.
Traditional marketplaces primarily capture demand that is already established. TikTok Shop, by contrast, operates further upstream in the decision-making process.
Here, sales do not begin with existing demand, but with the creation of desire. Consumers discover products within an aspirational context or through a practical demonstration that brings a previously unrecognised benefit or an aspirational lifestyle into focus.
The platform then enables that desire to be converted into a completed purchase by integrating content, promotion and commerce into a single, seamless journey.