babymarkt grows from an online shop to a platform

Bochum, 18 November 2021 +++ With its own marketplace and an update of the babymarkt app, babymarkt is starting its further development from an online shop to a platform for young families.

With currently around 100,000 items, babymarkt.de already offers the largest assortment in the industry for baby and children’s items. With the new marketplace, the company wants to at least double the range within the next two years. We started with four partners and over 10,000 articles in the marketplace. By the end of 2021, we want to expand the total assortment by about 25 percent with an additional 25,000 items,” explains Bastian Siebers, CEO of babymarkt. Partners such as Green Cotton in particular complement the range of sustainable fashion. “We are thus further rounding off our range,” says Siebers. In addition to fashion, new thematic areas will be added, including in the toys segment.

The aim is to integrate several hundred marketplace partners at babymarkt and thus offer even more choice. With a base of 1.6 million customers and up to ten million visits per month, this is also worthwhile for the business partners themselves, who benefit from babymarkt’s reach and exclusive target group.

We would like to achieve up to 30 percent of our turnover via the marketplace in the next few years,” is the CEO’s economic perspective.

One of the decisive factors for this economic development will be the choice of partners, for whom great importance is attached to high quality standards. After the successful start in Germany, the goal is to expand the product range via the marketplace in babymarkt’s international markets as well and to gradually develop all European online shops into marketplaces over the next few years.

While the product range has so far been geared towards babies and the age group of toddlers up to two years, the new marketplace expands the age spectrum – from the first equipment to the first own steps, the first visit to daycare or kindergarten to the first day at school. The vision: “We want to be part of the family.” With the new marketplace, babymarkt is investing in the product range – in breadth and depth. “We want to accompany young families from the very first moment with our knowledge and practically grow up together with the children,” Bastian Siebers draws a picture of the online shop to the platform.

A team of currently five employees at babymarkt is working intensively on integrating the new partners into the marketplace. The team is led by Friederike Lütgenau, who, as the daughter of the company’s founder and authorised signatory, has been helping to shape babymarkt for almost 20 years. “For our customers, this means even more choice, but shopping remains as easy as ever,” she explains. As before, parents place the selected items in the shopping basket – whether from the classic shop or the marketplace. Customers can see quite transparently whether the product is a partner product and whether delivery and possible returns will be handled directly by the marketplace partner.

This does not change our own high standards of service in terms of fast delivery times and simple processing, including returns,” emphasises Friederike Lütgenau.

An essential component of the further development of the platform is the revision of the babymarkt app in the next step. “The app already bundles our expertise in service, assortment and, above all, advice,” says Bastian Siebers. The additional tips from the babymarkt midwives, interactive checklists and the wealth of helpful information from the online guide – for example, when choosing prams or baby seats – are already making everyday life easier for mothers-to-be. The podcast „baby bump and parenting happiness“ also enriches it. The dialogue in the community lets them share in the experience of others. “With the update of the app, we are intensifying the exchange with the young family. It is developing into a digital pregnancy companion,” Siebers continues. The further development step of the app should be completed at the beginning of 2022.