The Event

K5 Future Retail Conference 2027 Berlin · June 22–23 2027

K5 Future Retail Conference is one of the largest German-language ecommerce and marketplace conferences, and it returns to the Estrel in Berlin for two days in June 2027. The organiser projects around 5,000 visitors, with 200+ partners and exhibitors and 250+ speakers, spread across two main stages, three expo stages, eight masterclass rooms and an auditorium given over to AI.

Germany is the largest ecommerce market in the EU. That single fact is why the conference matters to a US brand: the people on stage and in the aisles are operators who already sell there, talking to each other rather than to visitors.

View event site → What this means for EU expansion

The Room

Who's expected at K5 Future Retail Conference 2027

K5 draws operators rather than the people selling to operators. Founders and managing directors make up the core, with heads of ecommerce, marketplace leads and performance marketing leads alongside them. The organiser counts 250+ speakers and 200+ partners and exhibitors, which gives you a fair sense of how dense the two days are.

Most of it runs in German. Plan for that if you do not speak the language, because it is also the reason the content is worth sitting through. This is the domestic conversation about the EU's largest ecommerce market, in the language that conversation actually happens in.

Founders and managing directors Heads of ecommerce Marketplace leads Performance marketing leads Retail media buyers Logistics and operations directors Direct-to-consumer brands Technology and service providers

For a growing brand seeking the next step up, is K5 Future Retail Conference 2027 a good fit?

This one leans operator-heavy and German-speaking, so it suits a brand that has already decided Germany matters and now wants to understand how the market runs, rather than one still choosing a first market. If your priority right now is broad international discovery, a multi-market show will serve you better. If it is Germany specifically, two days at the Estrel will teach you more than a quarter of desk research, provided you arrange translation or travel with someone who speaks the language.

DACH founders and managing directors

The senior end of German, Austrian and Swiss ecommerce. They run businesses in the market you are trying to enter, which makes their view of margin, delivery expectations and marketplace economics unusually concrete.

Heads of ecommerce and marketplace leads

The people who decide which channels a German brand sells through. Worth listening to on how Amazon sits next to domestic marketplaces, and on what a German shopper expects from a listing before trusting it.

Performance marketing and retail media buyers

Acquisition costs in Germany behave differently from US ones, and this crowd discusses that openly. Good calibration if your European business case is built on US customer acquisition assumptions.

Logistics and operations directors

The unglamorous half of the programme, and the half that decides whether a European launch works. Delivery promise, returns and where you place stock all get proper airtime.

Programme

What's on at K5 Future Retail Conference 2027

K5 runs across two main stages, three expo stages, eight masterclass rooms and an AI auditorium, which is wide enough that you have to choose. The tracks below group the themes the organiser has published, and the session lines under each are indicative rather than a released schedule.

01 Asia-Model Commerce and Price Pressure

Temu, Shein and the rapid-commerce playbook out of China and wider Asia get main-programme treatment. For a US brand this is the clearest available read on the price and delivery expectations it will be measured against in Germany, which are now set as much by those players as by domestic retail.

What Asia rapid commerce has done to German price points
Competing on delivery promise rather than on price
Where a premium positioning still holds

02 AI and Agentic Commerce

K5 gives AI a dedicated auditorium, and the angle is operational rather than speculative. What agentic commerce does to product discovery, what it demands of product data, and what a brand has to change about its catalogue to stay findable.

Agentic commerce and what it wants from your product data
AI in merchandising and customer service
Catalogue quality as a ranking factor

03 Social, Live Commerce and Retail Media

Social and live selling have travelled differently in German-speaking markets than in the US, and retail media has become a budget line rather than an experiment. Useful ground if you are working out where a European marketing budget should go in year one.

Live commerce in German-speaking markets
Retail media budgets and who is really buying
Creator partnerships that cross borders

04 Logistics, Sustainability and Direct-to-Consumer

The operations half of the programme. Fulfilment, delivery expectations, returns and sustainability sit together here, alongside direct-to-consumer trading. This track maps most closely onto the decisions a US brand has to make before its first German order ships.

Delivery expectations German shoppers actually hold
Returns economics in a high-return market
Sustainability requirements arriving on packaging

Live Intelligence

What's being said about K5 Future Retail Conference 2027

These are the themes we expect around K5 2027, drawn from the Events Intelligence record of September 2026, and this block will be refreshed as coverage develops.

Around 5,000 visitors projected for 2027

ORGANISER SITE · SEP 2026

The organiser puts the 2027 figure at roughly 5,000 visitors, alongside 200+ partners and exhibitors and 250+ speakers. These are projections published a year ahead rather than counted attendance, so read them as the organiser's plan for the event rather than a result. They do give a fair sense of scale: large, without the room becoming impossible to work.

A 35,000+ number that covers every prior edition

ORGANISER SITE · SEP 2026

K5 also quotes a cumulative 35,000+ across its previous editions. That is a running total over the conference's history, not a single-year attendance figure, and it is worth reading it that way before it turns up in somebody's slide. The useful number for planning purposes is the 2027 projection.

Asia-model commerce sits on the main programme

K5 FUTURE RETAIL CONFERENCE PROGRAMME · 2027

Temu, Shein and rapid commerce out of China and Asia appear as named themes rather than side sessions. German ecommerce is treating the price and speed expectations those players set as a structural change to compete with, not a passing disruption. A US brand planning a German launch is entering that same competitive set, at those price points.

AI gets a room of its own

K5 FUTURE RETAIL CONFERENCE PROGRAMME · 2027

Alongside the main and expo stages, the programme carries an auditorium dedicated to AI, with agentic commerce among the themes. The practical question for a brand is what agentic discovery does to product data, because a catalogue that reads badly to a machine is a catalogue that stops being found.

A senior room, and a German-speaking one

EVENTS INTELLIGENCE · SEP 2026

K5 is one of the largest German-language ecommerce and marketplace conferences, and its audience skews senior and DACH. For a US visitor that is the value and the obstacle in one, because the most useful conversations in the building will be happening in German. Budget for translation or travel with somebody who speaks it.

The bigger picture

Germany is the EU's largest ecommerce market and it does not reward improvising

Most US brands arrive in Europe through the UK, then discover that Britain covers Britain and nothing else. Germany is the bigger prize and the harder setup. It has its own VAT (value-added tax) registration, its own packaging registration, a shopper base with firm views on delivery and returns, and a marketplace landscape where Amazon is strong without being the whole picture. Two days at K5 will show you how the people already operating there think about all of that, which is worth a great deal more than a market report.

VAT (value-added tax) registration is triggered wherever you hold stock. Put inventory into a German warehouse, or into a marketplace's German fulfilment network, and the obligation follows it.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) registration for packaging is done per country. Germany needs its own, separate from France and from anywhere else, and selling without it risks marketplace suspension.
Under the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), Regulation (EU) 2023/988, most consumer products need a named Responsible Person established in the EU. A US company cannot take that role itself.
Customs treatment of low-value goods shipped into the EU is tightening, which raises the landed cost of posting orders direct from the US and makes local stock the cheaper answer over time.

Expandly works with 2,000+ brands and runs European expansion as one operation on the Global Expansion Pathway (GEP™): registrations, compliance, our Netherlands warehouse and marketplace setup, with Amazon as our Recommended E2E Expansion Partner. Go to Berlin for the market intelligence. Let us handle the registrations it tells you that you need.

Projected scale for 2027

The organiser expects around 5,000 visitors, with 200+ partners and exhibitors and 250+ speakers. These are projections rather than counted attendance.

5,000 visitors projected by the organiser

Germany needs its own registrations

Selling into Germany means German VAT where you hold stock and a German packaging registration of its own. Neither is covered by a UK or Dutch setup.

Per country packaging registration

One partner, one operation

Expandly runs VAT registration, compliance, fulfilment from our Netherlands warehouse and marketplace setup as a single European expansion, on the Global Expansion Pathway.

GEP™ the method we run it on

Good to Know

Questions about K5 Future Retail Conference 2027

When and where is K5 Future Retail Conference 2027?

June 22–23 2027 at the Estrel in Berlin. Ticket pricing is not published on the organiser's site as at September 2026, and the figure of around 5,000 visitors is the organiser's projection for 2027 rather than a counted total.

Is K5 worth the trip if you do not speak German?

The programme runs largely in German, so plan for translation or bring a colleague who speaks it. The trade-off is worth weighing, because this is the domestic conversation about the largest ecommerce market in the EU, which is exactly the conversation an English-language export conference cannot give you.

What does K5 Future Retail Conference cover?

The published themes include rapid-commerce models from China and Asia such as Temu and Shein, AI and agentic commerce, social and live commerce, performance marketing, logistics, sustainability, retail media and direct-to-consumer trading. It runs across two main stages, three expo stages, eight masterclass rooms and an AI-focused auditorium.

Which EU countries should a US brand prioritise?

Germany is the largest EU ecommerce market and the Netherlands is one of the most logistics-friendly, with fast VAT (value-added tax) registration and a central location for shipping across the continent. Many US brands use a Netherlands warehouse to serve both, reaching Germany and neighbouring countries within a day or two by road.

Which marketplaces matter most for selling in Europe?

Amazon is not automatic across Europe. Amazon UK, Germany, and others are strong, but local marketplaces often lead: Bol dominates the Netherlands, Zalando leads fashion, and Allegro leads Poland. The right mix depends on your category and market, and stock entering a marketplace's local fulfilment triggers VAT (value-added tax) obligations there.

Why are US brands expanding into Europe now?

The main reasons are rising US advertising and acquisition costs, marketplace and tariff volatility, and the risk of depending on a single channel or market. Europe offers large, less-saturated markets as a growth and diversification play. The brands that succeed treat it as a structured operation, not a listings exercise.

Make Your Move

Berlin will show you how German ecommerce works. We will get you into it.

K5 is two days inside the operating reality of the EU's largest ecommerce market, in the language that market is actually run in. If Germany sits anywhere on your roadmap, that is a sharper use of a June than most conferences you could fly to.

Tell us before you go what you sell and where you want to sell it, and we will send over the German specifics worth listening for: where VAT registration bites, what packaging registration involves, what German shoppers expect on delivery and returns, and which marketplaces matter beyond Amazon. Come back with what you heard and we will turn it into a launch order, market by market.

No charge for the conversation, and no obligation at the end of it. Worst case, you fly home knowing which half of your catalogue should cross first.

Global Expansion Pathway™

Where to Expand