European Expansion: Strategies for Fashion and Sports Brands

Paul Sonneveld
I'm your host, Paul Sonneveld, and today we're going to discover the insights, strategies and opportunities you need to thrive and expand as a fashion or sports brand in the European marketplace market. I've invited Valerie Dichtl to join us and share her valuable expertise and perspectives on how to achieve this. Allow me to introduce her.

Valerie is the founder and owner of Marketplace Uni, an online community and education company focused on brands in the fashion, shoes, sports accessories and lifestyle industry that offers online live courses for brands and manufacturers who want to sell on European online marketplaces like Zalando, About You, Amazon, and Otto.

Valerie is a fashion and online marketplace expert. And from her 13 years of experience in fashion and eCommerce, together with the team, she advises and supports brands that want to sell their product via platforms and teach their employees how to do this profitably and both strategically and with an operational lens. Thank you so much for joining me today on the show. Valerie is absolutely fantastic to have you today. 

Valerie Dichtl
Thank you, Paul, for this great introduction and yeah, I'm happy, really happy to be here first time in an English live broadcast podcast, because I'm also a podcast host in Germany. But we never do it with a video. 

*(Both laugh)*

Valerie Dichtl
So yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you today about the marketplace business in Europe and about mainly fashion and sports brands, as this is like my core topic. Yeah. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah. Now look, I'm really excited. I've just come back. As you know, I'm based in Australia, as many of you know, but I've just spent three weeks on the road talking to agencies actually in Germany, France and the Netherlands and a little bit of the UK as well. And there is a big theme around next year. And the big theme is, what are the priorities outside Amazon? I think Amazon will remain a really core focus, but as we all know, trading on Amazon is getting tougher.

Profitability is harder and tougher. And then I think now more than ever, agencies are looking to other opportunities. You know, what else is out there? Where should they be investing in, in terms of marketplaces? And maybe where they shouldn't be investing in. So I think it's a really great time that we that we talk about this. So let's dive straight in. So to start, maybe can you provide some insights into what the current marketplace landscape in Europe actually looks like, you know, specifically for fashion and sports trends? How do you see the market? 

Valerie Dichtl
Well, yeah. So  I always try my best to not say like it's dependent on this and that and this and that, because it's mostly the case, to be very honest. So I was a vendor manager myself in the fashion industry of working at Amazon. So I know quite well how the business changes, and how Amazon works with its vendors. 

Actually, this was one reason why I left the company because I didn't want to burn my name because I wanted to stay in the industry. And yeah, I really gained so many great contacts with like all of the fashion and sports brands. So what I did was like, I changed to the other side, open the marketplace business for one of my brands and that's what I mainly did.

And then for five years now, I've been self-employed doing consulting for fashion and sports brands. So what we see is like, there is a huge change within the marketplace business. So fashion and sports, I would say overall compared to other categories, they are much more forward in terms of marketplace business. And they're, yeah, how adults there are in the marketplace business, I would say compared for example, to home and living or do it yourself, I have sometimes the feeling like they are much more upfront, but what I see also is that we have like a huge landscape. 

And we saw from a, it's called Marktplatz studio 2022, we saw also the increasing amount of marketplace businesses. So there is like the marketplaces overall are growing. And as you can see here on my overview, it's called the Markplatz Marketplace Quadrant. Yeah. How is it based? So there was actually not no overview about who are relevant marketplaces in our industry.And I thought like, okay. There in this marketplace study that was mentioned that we had like 140 relevant, like, marketplaces about selling fashion in Europe. 

And I was like, yeah, but 140, if someone asked me like, Hey, Valerie, we are a fashion brand. We are selling whatever mainly dresses. Where shall we sell our products? And I said, like, yeah, I cannot say like, well, at 140 different marketplaces right? So you have to really be specific about what is your target group? Who is like, in which country are those mentioned? And we would, I would say overall, we have four big marketplaces. They are mainly based in Germany, but are quite interesting is mainly Zalando.

Zalando is the fashion marketplace in Europe. They are serving 25 different countries, growing really, really big, like also fashion and sports. This overview is mainly fashion and shoes because we have another one prepared for you also for sports brands. And yeah, we have next to Zalando, we have About you, as you can see here on the quadrant, it's like to get like a feeling about how is it structured, we have them from the budget segment on the left side till the luxus and premium segment on the right side. And roughly, the base of this overview is based on my experiences on like the talking with so many different marketplaces, brands, et cetera.

So there's like no direct facts and figures space, I would say because it's impossible to find out like what Zalando is doing as a marketplace in fashion in Germany, for example, comparing it to whatever. So this is like the main overview. And next to them, next to Zalando, I would say there's about you quite good and quite huge, also serving 22 different countries.Also for fashion. So they are doing a lot of influences. Zalando is like kind of upgrading to the luxury departments.

We have Otto, which is a bit, not similar to Amazon, but Otto is also coming from a mail order market from the past. They had a big catalogue mainly in Germany. So Otto is really true German. But they are also selling many, many different categories, also fashion and Amazon, I guess. I don't need to explain Amazon what they are doing, right? But, Amazon overall is quite huge, even though I would say many fashion brands, they're saying like, ah, we don't want to be at Amazon due to pricing issues, et cetera, et cetera.

But to be very honest in 80 percent of the cases, it's pretty clear that their products of them are already there. The question is like, how do you want to be shown as your brand? And do you have everything in, in place that you are the leader of your content as well, or are you like letting your retailers, like doing your content and looks like whatever. Yeah, that's what I would say. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yes. Makes sense. Shall we have a quick look at the sports one?

Valerie Dichtl
The sports one, as you can see there is like a big match between fashion and sports overviews, but there are also other ones added. I would say the biggest newcomer and with the most potential is Decathlon. They are also evolving to many more countries, offering also a fulfillment service. 

So I would say Decathlon is one really important one. We see that Sprinter in Spain and Portugal is also becoming bigger and bigger. Because they bought Perry and 10 XT Sports from the Netherlands. So they are like, getting more reach, I would say. We also have like this part of like this I would say promotional and off price sellers like Veepee, AFound, OutletCity Metzingen, Private Sport Shop, and for fashion, we have also Best Secret there. 

And then it's also always important to see where you come from. So which country is important for you. For example, Colizey is also quite a new premium sports marketplace, super interesting from France, but also evolving to Germany, for example, Stadium is more based in Sweden. Then we have also the UK people with like Alltricks and Prodirect. And if you go to the really, really premium part, fashion is farfetch for fashion as well.

And with a sports overview, you have to be aware, this is a mixture of sports, fashion and sports hardware and hard goods, right? I mean, it's a pretty difficult or different situation if you sell, for example, running gear like, compared to a running shorts, right? Yeah. Make sure some of them are just fashion. Some of them are mainly hard goods. Some of them are both. Yeah. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah. Which, which sort of raises an interesting question for me, which is many brands often debate, like between category relevance and the size of the marketplace. I mean, this is probably the question that is really hard to answer without, it depends in front of it. But how do you talk to the people that are on your course, how do you talk to them about that trade-off between sort of super specialized, this is where my ideal customer lives, but there's only a hundred of them versus this doesn't really fit me, but there's a million customers. Where's that trade-off? How do you think about it?

Valerie Dichtl
I would say it's always a mixture. So there is if you are a brand, on it's a mixture of like mixing the marketplaces, which have an amazing and huge reach, for example, like Amazon, and then if you are, have a niche product, then you should also choose niche marketplaces who are fitting to your target group.

So what I always say is like start with your marketplace strategy with your brand, with your target group and choose the marketplaces where you want to go. And then you say like, yeah, okay. But then I see like 50 different marketplaces. What shall I choose? I don't have any clue. Get someone who has experience in the market, talk with other brands who are also, or have a look on those marketplaces. I mean, if you are not totally new to the market, you should have heard already of one of those marketplaces. 

Mainly, I would say 70% of those marketplaces also have also wholesale businesses. So usually, the brands know where they want to go or what is important. It's important. It's like, yeah, I want to be at, I don't know, in Germany or we want to be at the CDON in Sweden, whatever. Or at ASOS, ASOS is a super new marketplace, by the way then it's also dependent on like, is this marketplace also seeing your brand as their target group? Because I could say like, I would love to be at Farfetch. And but if you're not meeting their guidelines and their target group, then they say like, no to you because they are a closed marketplace. So there's also a big differentiation between open and closed marketplaces. So you can 

Paul Sonneveld
That’s where I was going next around,  if you look at the picture, maybe we should bring up the fashion one again, maybe just for our audience particularly those that are just used to Amazon and just going on there and opening an account obviously a bit different on the vendor side, but this concept of open marketplaces versus curated marketplace, what does it look like in the context of, of fashion in particular?

Valerie Dichtl
So in fashion, I would say that 80-90% percent of the marketplaces are, how do you say curated marketplaces? Yeah. So it means that you need to enter this marketplace as a brand. You need to question them like, Hey, Can we get a brand approval for our brand? And they do this brand approval by brand approval, sometimes even by country. 

So just to see, for example, Zalando if you are a key player in Poland, then it's likely that you get a brand permission for Poland. But if they don't see you in, I don't know, Spain or Germany, they don't give you a brand permission for that one. So it becomes even more dedicated. Sometimes even they say like, okay, you are allowed to, I don't know put 100 different articles on it, but then stop or from this category or whatever. 

And then we have, on the other hand, those truly open marketplaces like Amazon, bol. com from the Netherlands, which is like the Amazon from the Netherlands, I would say. We have Kaufland, we have E Marker from the main Eastern Europe. We have Allegro from Poland or eBay. I guess everyone knows eBay. So they are truly open and it's easy to sell there. 

So it should always be a mixture of like we getting the reach, but always, always choose a marketplace, which suits to your brand because you have like a premium brand, you don't want to sell your products on price entry, you don't, if you have a premium brand selling, I don't know, dresses for 180 euro, then you don't want maybe to put your products on Trendyol, which is for like I'm trying to use a new marketplace coming from Turkey. They're huge, the biggest one in Germany, like coming up, but their price points are mainly till 30 euro maximum for fashion and young fashion. So yeah, there's a mismatch. So you really need to match the target group of the marketplace with your target group. And yeah, based on experiences is what you hear. Also, sometimes you can, research about the turnover they do in total. There you can also get a feeling how huge they are or how small they are. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah, I think it's always in my experience has always been a tricky one because turnover just signals demand but obviously the curated aspect can really create some great sales because of the lack of competition in some of those.

Valerie Dichtl
Yeah.

Paul Sonneveld
I was going to ask a follow-up question. Obviously, a lot of listeners or watchers that are tuning in are interested in expansion, right? And now for that means. How can I use these marketplaces as leverage to get into another country that I might not be operating in now? Of course, that's tricky because a lot of the curator marketplace, basically, you'll get, Oh, is your brand known? Are people searching for your brand in a country? And if not, we won't let you on. 

However, I have noticed at times that I'm talking, I guess I'm putting my Australian perspectives here sometimes. Some of these marketplaces are in growth mode and they're actively recruiting sellers, whereas others are sort of have hit saturation, and it's unless you're Louis Vuitton like you'll never get on there. Are there which of these marketplaces from a fashion point of view, and I'm happy to do the same question on sports, like are, would you say are really open to bringing on more brands? Like they're sort of in a build mode. You know, which ones are kind of more opening to brands that want to expand?

Valerie Dichtl
So I would say mainly the newer ones. And then you also have to have a look on who's standing behind them. I like where this money comes from, who is like supporting them. So just like for like on this overview, ASOS is pretty new and best secret as well. So they opened up this year as a marketplace. They were existing before, but they are super, super, super restrictive in putting on new marketplace leads. They are more like, we already have so many wholesale leads. We will ask them before, and then we expand to the marketplace business. 

What we see, for newly who are really, really interested are trying to yield, for example and they also expanding in Europe a lot, Miravia as well. So I see them everywhere, and they are really like, really into getting new sellers. And what's also interesting is that they are really pushing and supporting, and they also have great offers to get on boarded, right? So the commissions are pretty low in the beginning and they're really supporting the brands also to  get rich to start there. 

If you take, for example, the sports one the sports overview, then for example, what is super interesting here right now, Decathlon as well, because they're really pushing in the market and Colizey as well because they are funded from LV image. And you know, that there is like, there's money behind it.

And then they have also the push to grow. For example, also in the last two years, Yokes from Italy, they are, sorry, back again on the fashion one, but Yokes, for example, they also grew a lot in the past two years, but also recently popped up. We also have, but also we also have on this page, for example, some marketplaces who are a bit on like the I don't know how long they will survive for example, goods they were bankrupt and got bored, but we don't know. Galeria is also a bit like so on the edge. So there are some of them like, who are like maybe you find them in MineX, you don't find them anymore in MineX version of the Marketplace Quadrant anymore. So, I really can update this overview every two months or something, and it's everything sometimes changing. It's really insane. Yes, so much. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Everyone's getting into the game and there's certainly no shortage. No shortage of options there. Before I move on to my next question, I do want to sort of pause quickly on shine or Shein. I don't know how that's actually pronounced properly. What's the perspective of that marketplace in Europe? Because obviously in Southeast Asia or in Asia, it's very popular. They're making really big inroads in Mexico and Latin America. What's the perspective, what's the European perspective on that marketplace? 

Valerie Dichtl
So their, their growth numbers are insane. I would say everyone is like looking at it, trying it out somehow and being a bit like, a critical about it, like from the, but it's. It's pretty much depending on the target group or in the people you talk to, right? 

So if we talk about the younger target group and also those people who don't have like the money to buy the really more price-intensive products, I would say they are obviously super interested in chain and I find it quite impressive how they build it, how fast they are because they are still shipping from China to Europe and super fast. 

So it's a bit like, let's see how they do it, what they do, how can they be so crazy fast? And so yeah, this is a bit like, and yeah, obviously we have also the quality topics, but overall it's, yeah, it's yeah, some, I think some of them some of the marketplaces but also fast fashion brands, they are really, really anxious about it as well, because there is a pretty big new competitor who's really fast. 

So I'm, I'm curious to see, in terms of marketplace, I would say. I'm not so sure if I want to be there as a proper fashion and sports brands. So I would rather choose, for example, Decathlon is also a retail themselves right? But I would rather, for example, go to Decathlon or to Zalando or About you are Like also have like this fashion statement, sports states and this trust, right? Because it's Shein, you can buy almost everything already. Yeah. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, well, let's talk some practical things here around expansion. So maybe a theoretical scenario here. I might be an Amazon brand, fashion brand or sports brand, and maybe I'm even based in the US but I've already made it successfully to the UK. I'm operating my Amazon store there. Maybe I'm toying around the idea of going on Amazon Germany, but I'm thinking about what's next. Okay. What are some of the and obviously it's completely theoretical here, but, what are some of the practical entry strategies that you know, such a brand with this context should really consider in order to transition smoothly and profitably, I should say.  

Valerie Dichtl
So yeah, have a strategy in place and really calculate if your business case is profitable or if you need to adjust your products. I mean, you already have proven this via your already existing business, but be aware Europe is not one country. It's like 27 different countries. I don't know, 20 different languages, sometimes different currencies, borders. So be aware about your logistical part. 

I would say, Zalando for example, could be very interesting for you as a starting point, if you get the brand approval and then choose your logistic partner wisely for example, there's something pretty new, it's called ZEOS. Z-E-O-S. It's the logistic service from Zalando and they are offering now to ship to your own eCommerce to About you to Zalando and but also to other marketplaces like Amazon. 

So choose a logistic hub, I would say if you are new to the continent and don't do like oh, we because some of the marketplaces they don't offer fulfillment services. So I would start with the biggest ones because if you want to grow on Europe, you can expand with Zalando to 26 different countries, especially if you use their fulfillment services. You can also expand with About you to 25 different countries. 

So choose bigger partners where you can test the markets. And as soon as you, for example, realized, Oh, Netherlands is a great market for us. Then you can still go with I would say the country leaders of the marketplace business. For example, with fashion in Netherlands, it would be maybe Wehkamp. For kids, it would be kleertjes. Yes, they are belonging to each other or boll, right? So I would further start with the big ones who is like easy to enter different countries and then go with the local heroes. 

Paul Sonneveld
That makes sense. Just one follow-up question on fulfillment. If I'm coming from the Amazon world, can I use Amazon fulfillment network for some of these fashion marketplaces, a bit like what you're saying about the Zalando fulfillment network, if I'm already in Amazon FBA and doing a pan-European fulfillment, can I use that for fashion marketplaces?

Valerie Dichtl
Yes. There is also a multi-channel fulfillment from Amazon, but to be honest, I don't know on how many fashion marketplaces there are really are connected to. So I know this version from Zalando to the other way around, I would say, but from Amazon to other countries, logistical-wise, I'm not quite sure which marketplaces are connected. What you also need to be aware, and this is really, really hard to know, the return rates from Amazon Europe are always much, much lower than compared to Zalando. Zalando Germany as the biggest return rate in whole Europe, I would say for fashion. So be aware. For example, if you have a return rate of, I don't know, at Amazon at 30%, it could be easily 50-60% at Zalando. And this is really in fact influencing the profitability of your business case. So be aware of that one.

And every country has also different return rates, for example, the French are less so the Germans are really good in returns and crazy about it, Austria and Switzerland as well. But then if you go in the other countries around, it's a bit lower. So this is a huge difference, but also the logistic prices are also different in every country. So this makes Europe a bit like spread it and a bit more complex, I would say, than if you have like U. S. like with like one language and no borders. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah. 

Valerie Dichtl
Yeah. So it's a really different business, but it's a very interesting one. Yeah. 

Paul Sonneveld
So in terms of expanding, you spoke about sort of, maybe start with Zalando and then do more of a country-by-country strategy and look for the local heroes. What are the biggest mistakes that you see? Fashion and sports brands make as they try and expand in Europe, where do they trip up?

Valerie Dichtl
So the biggest mistake is to start and not calculate the business case. So or to start with products who have a low average sales price. Just for example, if you have an average sales price below 20 euro and a return rate, which is higher than 20, 30%, then it's already negative in Europe. 

So you need to be aware and to adjust your assortments, for example, make multi-pack sets, whatever or just like put in the higher ASP products I would say that's mainly a big topic, so have a strategy in place. Calculate the case before exactly and also ask others like other brands in your industry or who are competitors, whatever. 

Ask them what is like interesting for you, where were your pitfalls and also choose a good partner who has that knowledge of the marketplace business in Europe. That's actually what we do mainly with the marketplace only, right? We connect like the different brands with each other. So for example, there's like Lacoste in it, or old law or I don’t know, tamaris, happy Socks. So we have like plenty of different brands and I know with whom they're integrated because you also need an integration, right? So this is like, you need a middleware and you, So the midway and logistics or a full service partner who does it for you. 

And also be aware about our different tax systems. So, tax agents wise you are also sometimes depending on where your stock is place you are also you need a tax identification number in this specific country. So get some experts on board, I would say because there are many pitfalls and that could be pretty, pretty bad for you if you just think like, oh, let's do this and then just don't follow the rules and could be painful and very cost intensive.

Paul Sonneveld
So, a lot of times we talk about European expansion in particular, we always come to the topic of localization, localization of content and all of that. I have heard in when it comes to fashion in particular, how important is that localization? Say, these are the Amazon because, you know, playing devil's advocate, on all fashion shoppers just buying on my mobile and they're just browsing pictures. So how important is it to invest in that local aspect versus maybe what you might do from an Amazon content point of view? 

Valerie Dichtl
And you mean with localization exactly, Paul, because like, just to clarify for all of your listeners. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I guess in a holistic sense. So let's say I've got content for UK market and that's great. And it works on Amazon. I now want to, let's say I want to go to Holland, right? And I do want to go on boll and some of those other fashion marketplaces. Of course, there's the translation aspect. I understand that. But how far do you go into the localization of the content? You know, I'm talking about, do you reshoot photography, lifestyle images with bridges in Amsterdam with bikes behind it, versus deep keyword optimization, long tail, like, where do you draw the line?
Because it could be like. You could spend your whole life doing that, right? So where's, are there some shortcuts is what I'm asking? 

Valerie Dichtl
Yeah. Yeah. Well I would, I mean, in terms of Amazon, there's localization, right? In terms of Zalando, for example, you can just mainly put in data in already like drop-down fields. So this is like automatically translated. So you don't have really a big possibility to change anything. They do it for you despite of the free text and the bullet points. But sometimes even that is like pretty, pretty small in the amount. So in terms of like content, different pictures, I would say there's no big difference, so you can use them for all of the European countries, 

The pictures, you need obviously to fit in the guidelines of the different marketplaces. So every marketplace has different guidelines with like some of them for in the fashion industry, they want to have model images like cut half face, sometimes full face with different background. So that is like a one main part.

In terms of content and data, there is not that big difference despite of currencies, different ones, right? If you're going to Switzerland and you have the borders as well, so that is a difference. But in terms of styles, it's often different because just to give an example, I've worked for the underwear industry and the swimwear industry and the taste of the different countries is quite different.

So if you have like a swimsuit in dark blue, it's great for and a lot of like fabric because like we don't, I don't know, we have like bigger caps sizes in Germany. They are quite happy in Spain and France, if it's more pastel and like super straight and super sexy. Yeah. It's like quite different taste of styles also in the different countries.

I think you need to be more aware of like what the taste and the different assortments may be in the country. Also depending on your products. Right. But, yeah, that's, I think more changing in terms of the assortment strategy and we have the return rate behaviour per country is also quite different. Yeah. 

Paul Sonneveld
Yeah, that's very interesting because really what you're saying, it's not so much about photography, although you need to do style guides or actually translation, it's actually about individual consumer preferences and actually maybe featuring a different hero image, depending on preferences or something as simple as that.

Valerie Dichtl
Yeah.

Paul Sonneveld
Awesome. We are out of time. But, you know, I'm going to squeeze in one last question just because we're almost at the end of 2023. Most of us are working very hard to sort of deliver Q4, as we'd like to say. 2024 is around the corner, what do you think we'll see in this, in this space next year? Like what are your, if we were to do this podcast again in 12 months' time, what are the things you'd say, look, I predicted that, that happened, this happened, what are your predictions for 2024 and most importantly how can the audience play into that and maximise those opportunities?

Valerie Dichtl
So, I would say the biggest trend or whatever, it's like, no, it's not trends because it's still profitability. So the growth declined from the last year. And I really hope we are knocking on wood that we get the growth back again because what we saw really this year was the decrease every almost everywhere. So I'm really glad if I would tell you like, oh, yeah, we were pretty good growth and it happened. But I would say it's much more about the professionalization of your marketplace business, not doing like this blindfold thing. So. Yeah, really have your strategy in place. Follow that one. 

And also what I think it's really, really important. Connect yourself with others in your market, even if it's the marketplace itself, but also your competitors or other people from the industry. Connect with them, talk with them because staying up to date is, I would say most important because there's so much changing and like bankruptcies of marketplaces, new marketplaces coming up and you need to sometimes there are no facts and figures where you can decide is this marketplace relevant for me or not, but you can like from talks with others who maybe already tried it, then you find really to yeah, the questions you needed and the answers you needed. And yeah, get into a community, whatever. So this is what we do with the Marketplace Uni, we like connect those people even more because your experience is from reading, but also from doing it and learning from others. I would say that's the most important thing. Yeah.


Paul Sonneveld
Excellent. Well, that is a great segue to finish on the question I always finish on, which is for those that are listening live, watching live, or maybe watching this episode on demand afterwards and they're really interested in maybe talking to you, tapping into your expertise, or maybe talking to you about some of the courses that you run how do they best get in touch with you

Valerie Dichtl
I would say the easiest way for all of you is going on my website. It's called www.marketplace-uni.com. And on the other way, LinkedIn. So you can always follow also the newest update on the marketplace quadrants on my LinkedIn, Valerie Dichtl. And yeah, I would love to connect with you there, write with you there, and yeah, speak about your current expansion, whatever connects you with the needed partners, so, yeah, just let me know and give me a message.

Paul Sonneveld
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that, Valerie. Unfortunately, we are out of time, so I'm going to have to wrap up, but I really appreciate you coming on the show today. You've brought an enormous amount of expertise and thank you for even just helping us paint a picture of those hundreds of marketplaces out there. I love those quadrants in the framework just to help us wrap our minds around what's out there and how do we think about that. So it really helped. Thank you so much for taking us on that journey and providing some of those really practical tips and considerations along the way as well. 

Valerie Dichtl
Thank you so much, Paul. 

Paul Sonneveld
Thank you so much. And yeah, I look forward to inviting you back on the show in 2024. 

Valerie Dichtl
Hopefully. Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me and it was really fun with you and yeah, hope to see you again next year. Latest. 

Paul Sonneveld
Thank you. Take care.

Valerie Dichtl
You too. 

Paul Sonneveld
All right. Well, that is it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you found the episode enlightening and giving you some initiatives and thoughts around how you can expand your business into Europe beyond Amazon, particularly if you're a fashion or sports brand. 

Now, if you are hungry for more, don't forget to visit our video on-demand library on our website for really a treasure trove of insights. And of course, if you're aiming to streamline your analytics to gain sharper insights across many of those marketplaces that Valerie talks about today, make sure you reach out to us and discover how MerchantSpring can really transform your journey on that front. 

Lastly, we and I am all ears for what you'd like to hear next. So if you've got a topic or a really burning question, drop me a note on LinkedIn and I will do my best to try and find a relevant speaker and run an episode for you on that topic. So make sure you share your ideas for future episodes until next time. Keep thriving and keep innovating. Thank you so much for listening until next time.