KoRo marketplace strategy: Optimized margins for 20% growth

How can a DTC brand scale their marketplace business without operational processes becoming a growth bottleneck? The KoRo marketplace strategy provides a clear answer.

Within just a few years, the food brand evolved from a DTC startup into an international omnichannel player, selling through Amazon, eBay, Kaufland, Galaxus and soon Decathlon. However, as international expansion accelerated, operational complexity increased as well.

To address this challenge, KoRo implemented automation with Channable. This enabled the company to stabilize their marketplace processes, reduce operational costs and simultaneously drive eCommerce margin optimization.

The result: 20% growth in marketplace sales along with significantly more efficient operations.

Key takeaways

• Manual marketplace processes often create significant hidden costs

• KoRo previously spent up to 20 hours per week managing flat files and fixing listing errors

• Automation helped manage product data more efficiently and synchronize orders faster

• More stable processes enabled Seller Fulfilled Prime

• The result: 20% growth through optimized ecommerce margins

Manual processes slowing marketplace growth

KoRo originally started as a direct-to-consumer brand with a strong focus on its own online shop. Influencer marketing and community building were among the most important growth drivers.

Marketplaces, however, quickly became a strategic sales channel. Amazon in particular allowed KoRo to reach new customer groups and test international markets. As Sebastian Thalheim, Product Manager at KoRo, explains:

We used Amazon also as a kind of like test to go to new countries before launching the websites there.

But as the assortment expanded and internationalization accelerated, a major issue emerged: the operational infrastructure could not keep pace with growth.

A large share of the team’s daily work consisted of manual processes such as:

• managing product flat files

• correcting formatting errors

• adjusting variant structures

• resolving listing rejections

• performing manual price updates

• monitoring order imports

At times, the team spent 10–20 hours per week on these tasks alone. Sebastian Thalheim recalls:

“We spend roughly like five to 10 hours a week just by creating and updating listings.”

These manual processes led to several problems:

• high error rates

• long product go-live times

• limited scalability

• declining operational efficiency

As product catalogs grow, these types of processes can quickly reduce eCommerce margins.

Managing marketplace listing errors: Why flat files become a problem

One of the biggest operational challenges in marketplace expansion is managing marketplace listing errors. As Sebastian Thalheim describes the early setup:

There is flat files and flat files and flat files.

Every platform has its own requirements for:

• product attributes

• variant logic

• mandatory fields

• image formats

• data structures

Amazon is particularly strict. Even small formatting errors can lead to rejected listings or products not appearing correctly.
For KoRo, this resulted in:

• numerous correction cycles

• repeated feed uploads

• manual work on product data

With several hundred products in the catalog, this process quickly became inefficient.

Automating marketplace operations with Channable

To solve these challenges, KoRo implemented an automated marketplace infrastructure with Channable.

With Channable, product data can be managed centrally and automatically adapted for different marketplaces. The platform’s rule engine allows existing data to be transformed dynamically.
Typical automations include:

• automatic adjustment of product attributes

• transformation of titles and descriptions

• translation of product data

• adjustment of size or color attributes

• feed validation before upload

• rule-based pricing logic

This automation allows many previously manual processes to run automatically and helps identify listing errors before products go live.

As a result, operational costs are reduced and eCommerce margin optimization becomes easier to achieve.

How did KoRo qualify for Seller Fulfilled Prime?

One particularly important improvement was order synchronization.
Before automation, importing Amazon orders could take more than an hour. Only after that could orders be processed.

With Channable, orders are now synchronized much faster. As soon as Amazon validates the payment, the order is automatically transferred into KoRo’s system.

This faster processing provided several benefits:

• more stable order fulfillment

• faster shipping processes

• improved delivery performance

• greater operational reliability

This allowed KoRo to meet the requirements for Seller Fulfilled Prime, an important factor for visibility and conversion on Amazon.

How the KoRo marketplace strategy delivered 20% marketplace growth

By automating marketplace operations, KoRo achieved several key improvements.
The most important results include:

• 20% growth in marketplace sales

• significantly reduced manual workload

• more stable order synchronization

• faster expansion to new marketplaces

• improved operational control

Today KoRo sells on multiple platforms, including:

• Amazon in several European countries

• eBay

• Kaufland

• Galaxus in Switzerland

Additional marketplaces are already planned, including Decathlon, as well as experiments with TikTok Shop.

Thanks to automated processes, the team can now test and scale new marketplaces much faster.

Learnings from the KoRo margin optimization case study

The KoRo case highlights several common challenges in marketplace operations.

Data quality is critical
Automation only works with structured product data.

Manual processes limit scalability
Flat files may work for one marketplace, but not for several.

Stability is more important than speed
Reliable order synchronization is essential for customer satisfaction and marketplace requirements.

Automation improves margins
Automated processes reduce operational costs and improve long-term profitability.

Stability to scale

The KoRo marketplace strategy shows that successful marketplace expansion is not only driven by demand or marketing.

The decisive factor is operational infrastructure. Automation, stable order processes and clean product data allow brands to scale their marketplace business efficiently.
With Channable, KoRo was able to stabilize its processes, optimize ecommerce margins and achieve 20% growth in marketplace sales.

Ready to dive deeper?

• Listen to the full story: Hear the details behind the collaboration and how they moved past "flat files" in this Marketplace Universe Podcast.

• Scale your own strategy: Discover how automated product data management can streamline your operations and mirror KoRo’s marketplace success.