90% growth goes to marketplace models, the rest goes “empty.”
In this episode of Kassenzone, hosted by Karo and Alex, we take the audience on an exciting journey through the latest developments in the e-commerce sector. We are reflecting on the first events of 2026, which represent an important platform for us to gain valuable insights and interact with the community. Special mention is made of participation in the E-Commerce Expo in Berlin, where we were able to make numerous interesting contacts, as well as the top-class keynote from Alex, which aroused great interest.
A central topic of this episode is the Kassenzone meetup, which today deals with the TikTok shop. Alex gives us an insight into the questions he wants to ask the experts at this event, and we talk about how TikTok could be a functioning sales channel even for high-priced products. In addition to focusing on the community and sharing ideas in the meetups, we are also preparing for major events in the future such as OMR and Data Unplugged, where we will have the opportunity to have even more intensive discussions and gain valuable insights.
We'll then dive deep into the latest figures from the ECDB Global E-Commerce Compass 2026. We analyse how global e-commerce growth is going through a period of normalization in recent years. Growth forecasts point to stabilization at 7.8 percent for 2025 and an accelerated rate of 8.6 percent for 2026. We find that global e-commerce sales will exceed the 5 trillion US dollar mark, which underlines the sustainable relevance of online retail compared to analog retail.
