Vertical marketplaces: Decathlon, home24, ManoMano and other niches where you can stand out more easily than on general platforms.
Author: Borys Terlecki · marketplace sales and implementations at Commercraft · updated: September 2026
In short
A vertical marketplace focuses on one category: fashion (Zalando, Modivo), sport (Decathlon), health and beauty (Super-Pharm), home and living (home24).
It brings a more relevant customer, a brand environment and category tools, often higher conversion, but it can be selective and demanding.
For brands entering the German-speaking markets, verticals can be an almost ideal entry point, as a complement to the horizontal channels.
When we say ‘marketplace’, most people think of the giants that sell everything: Allegro, Amazon. Alongside them a whole category of specialised platforms is growing – vertical ones focused on a single industry. These can be the best channel for brands with a specific, demanding customer. Here we explain what they are and when they are worth your bet. Vertical marketplaces are platforms focused on a single industry, often the best channel for brands with a specific customer.
A vertical marketplace is a platform focused on a single category or industry: fashion (like Zalando or Modivo), sport (Decathlon), health and beauty (Super-Pharm), home and interiors (home24). Instead of offering everything to everyone, they bring together customers interested in a specific area in one place, which is their key strength.
A horizontal platform (Allegro, Amazon) gives you huge reach, but also huge competition and customers with very different intent. A vertical marketplace works the other way round: less traffic, but more focused and better matched. A customer who lands on a fashion platform came for fashion, and they’re closer to a purchase decision in your category than a random user of a general platform.
a more relevant customer means traffic matched to your category,
brand environment means proximity to products in the same category raises perceived value,
better category tools mean filters, attributes and presentation tailored to the industry,
often higher conversion because the customer arrives with a specific intent.
Specialisation comes at a price. Vertical platforms can be more selective (some work by invitation or require a registered trade mark), have higher quality requirements for content and brand, and their reach is smaller than the giants’. That smaller reach follows from the model itself. This is why verticals are best treated as part of a multichannel strategy rather than your only channel.
For brands entering German-speaking markets, vertical platforms can be an almost ideal entry point. They let you reach the right, affluent customer without drowning in a sea of offers on a general platform. A fashion brand on a fashion platform, or an interiors brand on a home platform, starts right away in the right environment and with the right audience.
We help you choose the right vertical platforms for your category and brand, prepare for their requirements and launch effectively, including in the Poland-DACH corridor. So you reach the right customer in the right environment. Want to check which verticals are for you? Write to us.
Calculate the potential channel ROI yourself
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Borys Terlecki – marketplace sales and implementations at Commercraft. He previously worked on the operator side of marketplace platforms (Mirakl, Munich) and today onboards brands on marketplaces in Poland and the DACH region and runs their accounts.
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