Guide

Marketplaces & sales channels

Marketplaces · 5 min read

← All articles
Marketplaces · 5 min read · Updated June 2026
Marketplaces & sales channels

If you're a brand executive plotting a Nordic entry, the temptation is to treat the region as "small Europe" — pick Amazon, maybe Zalando, ship product, done. That instinct fits the US and increasingly the UK, but it misreads the Nordic landscape. There is no single dominant marketplace here. The region is structurally fragmented along category lines, ownership groups, and four distinct national consumer bases. Getting the channel mix right is the single biggest determinant of whether your launch generates meaningful share or stalls at vanity GMV.

This article walks through the marketplace reality across Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland as it stands in 2026: what's actually selling where, which platforms have consolidated, which categories sit with which retailers, and what an honest channel mix looks like for a brand starting from scratch.

The concentration reality: there is no Nordic Amazon

In the US, Amazon captures roughly 40% of all e-commerce. In Germany and the UK, Amazon's share is dominant enough that a brand can launch on a single channel and reach a serious slice of demand. The Nordic picture is different. Industry data suggests the top five online platforms in Sweden combined capture under 60% of total e-commerce GMV — meaning more than 40% of demand sits with long-tail specialists, own-brand webshops, and category-specific marketplaces that don't appear on any "top 5" list.

Three forces produce this fragmentation. First, language: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish are distinct markets, and consumers reward retailers who localise properly. Second, trust: Nordic consumers carry strong loyalty to incumbent retailers — Elgiganten, Apotek Hjärtat, Bygghemma — many of which predate e-commerce. Third, ownership consolidation has happened at the retailer level rather than the platform level. Komplett Group owns NetOnNet and Webhallen. BHG Group owns most major DIY destinations. CDON Group operates both CDON and Fyndiq after the 2023 merger. The result is fewer storefronts than the brand list suggests — but those storefronts still operate as distinct consumer brands.

The practical implication: a brand entering the Nordics typically needs three to six channels to reach meaningful category share. One marketplace plus your own webshop is rarely enough.

Amazon Sweden: real, growing, still not dominant

Amazon launched amazon.se in October 2020 to a notoriously rocky reception — translation errors, country-flag mix-ups, and a Swedish press cycle that the brand spent two years recovering from. Five years on, the picture is more serious. Industry estimates put active sellers on amazon.se above 10,000, and Amazon now operates Swedish fulfilment infrastructure including warehouses in Eskilstuna and Brunna, with the country positioned as a Nordic logistics hub serving Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

FBA Sweden works. Pan-European FBA from Sweden is operational. For brands already running an EU Amazon programme, adding Sweden is a low-friction expansion. The platform is genuinely the fastest path to multi-category visibility in the Nordics today.

But there is a persistent trust gap. Nordic shoppers — and Swedish shoppers in particular — still default to local incumbents for high-consideration categories. Beauty buyers go to Lyko or Apotea. Electronics buyers price-check on Elgiganten or Komplett before they consider Amazon. Home and DIY buyers go to Bygghemma. Amazon performs strongly in commodity replenishment, books, and accessories, and increasingly in pure-play consumer electronics. It is not yet the category leader in fashion, beauty, pharmacy or home improvement, and the gap closes more slowly than the global narrative suggests.

CDON: the Nordic-native marketplace

CDON is the closest thing the Nordics have to a horizontal third-party marketplace built for the region. After the April 2023 acquisition of Fyndiq, the two platforms now sit under CDON Group, listed on Nasdaq First North. The technical migration to a unified platform completed during 2024, and CDON operates as a 100% third-party marketplace — it holds no own inventory and sells no own brands, which removes the platform-versus-seller competition dynamic that defines Amazon.

Commission structure is published in general terms: a monthly seller subscription in the region of €29 plus category-based commission. Commission is category-dependent and negotiated per seller — industry sources cite anything from mid-single digits to the high teens in percent, with a small per-order fixed fee. Exact rates are set with a CDON account manager before contract sign, so treat any published number as directional.

Category strengths are consumer electronics, home goods, kitchen, toys, sports, and media. CDON has historically been weaker in fashion (where Boozt and Zalando dominate) and in beauty (where pharmacy-led players own the trust position). For a brand selling in CDON's core verticals, it's typically the second channel to add after Amazon — and for some categories, the first.

Category specialists: where Nordic shoppers actually buy

The category-specialist tier is where most international brands underestimate the Nordic market. These retailers aren't marketplaces in the Amazon sense — many operate as curated retailers with selective marketplace extensions, or as pure-play retailers buying inventory. But they collectively capture a large share of category demand and need to be in the channel plan.

Consumer electronics

Fashion

Beauty and health

Home, DIY and grocery

Outdoor and sport

Toys, kids and books

Commissions, listing complexity, and operational reality

Marketplace commissions in the Nordics broadly sit in the 8–18% range on horizontal consumer marketplaces, with category-led variance:

The commission number is only half the cost picture. The bigger operational tax is content. Every Nordic channel has its own listing schema, image standards, attribute requirements, and language expectations. A serious presence on CDON, Amazon SE, Bygghemma and Elgiganten requires four sets of localised product copy in Swedish (plus Danish, Norwegian and Finnish for full Nordic coverage), four sets of attribute-mapped data feeds, and channel-specific imagery. Auto-translated copy gets penalised in search ranking and converts poorly.

How to pick the right channels — and what active management actually means

A workable channel-selection framework starts with category, not platform. Identify the two or three retailers that own category trust in your vertical. Layer in CDON if your category fits CDON's strengths. Layer in Amazon SE for breadth, replenishment volume, and as a hedge against the other channels. Build your own webshop as the data and brand-equity layer, not as a primary acquisition channel.

For most brands entering the Nordics, that produces a 3–6 channel mix in year one: one or two category specialists, CDON, Amazon SE, your own webshop, and one Nordic-specific test channel.

Active channel management is where most brand-led Nordic launches underdeliver. Listing a SKU is the easy part. The work that actually moves share is continuous:

How we help. JTI Ventures operates Nordic channel management on behalf of international brands — listing creation and localisation across CDON, Amazon SE, category specialists and curated retailers; pricing and content management; stock, fulfilment and returns handling out of Helsingborg. If you're scoping a Nordic entry or want a candid review of an existing channel mix, that's the work we do.

The Nordic takeaway

The Nordic e-commerce market rewards brands that respect its structure. There is no shortcut single channel. The combination of language fragmentation, strong incumbent retailers, and category-led consumer trust means a serious launch needs a deliberate channel mix, localised content, and active per-channel operations. Amazon SE is now a real channel and FBA Sweden works, but it is not the answer on its own. CDON is the Nordic-native horizontal play and belongs in most plans. The category specialists are where category trust actually lives, and ignoring them concedes the majority of demand to competitors who didn't.

Read next

Fulfillment
Fulfillment & logistics
Pricing
Pricing & positioning