No wonder

Bauhaus launched its online marketplace in August 2025 and aims to expand its product range by a six-figure number of items by the end of the year. The German DIY market leader is relying on technology from the French startup Mirakl. Georg Sobczak, Regional Vice President DACH & EE & NL at Mirakl, and Johannes Wechsler, Senior Vice President of E-Commerce and Digital at Bauhaus, explain their joint approach.

Why is it even a good idea to launch an online marketplace? You’re putting your brand out there, but you don’t have everything under control, and you’re also overwhelming customers with even more choices.

Georg Sobczak: Let me summarize the bottom line as follows: Ultimately, it’s always about serving customers really well—that is, offering them everything they need right now, whenever and wherever they need it. A marketplace model helps enormously with this: It broadens your own product range and ultimately ensures that you become the go-to destination when it comes to shopping. The shop benefits not only from additional sales commissions but, above all, from strengthening its brand because it is able to meet new needs. In addition, the marketplace operator retains full control at all times over which partners they work with and which products are offered in the shop. Of course, they also closely monitor—and in most cases automate—the quality and service of their partners, for example regarding adherence to delivery times. In case of problems, they can intervene quickly. Furthermore, the operator bears no risk, as they do not own the inventory themselves.

If the merchant becomes the go-to destination for a specific segment, this is directly reflected in sales. For example, if a customer originally visits the marketplace for a third-party product, they often end up purchasing additional products from the merchant themselves.

In summary, this means: An online marketplace makes it possible to flexibly expand the product range, reach new target groups, and offer customers a convenient shopping experience with a wide selection.

Mirakl operates globally. Looking specifically at online retail in the DIY industry: What different approaches exist in different countries?

Basically, we see that more and more home improvement stores worldwide are adopting marketplace models. This is because, particularly in this industry, a very extensive product range is crucial—one that can rarely be fully covered by the retailer’s own inventory. I would go so far as to say…