✨ Our last Marketplace Universe Connect Event of 2026 is in the books, and I’m j
By Valerie Dichtl · October 30, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
✨ Our last Marketplace Universe Connect Event of 2026 is in the books, and I’m just proud and grateful.
On Tuesday in Munich we brought new faces and familiar ones together and mixed them in ways they wouldn’t have found on their own.
If you’ve been to one of our events, you know Speed Connect. We did it again, just differently this time. Guests lined up by sock length (some came without socks 😉), by birthday month, by how far they travelled and by their years in the marketplace business. So now we know that Brigitte Toth had the shortest way to the location, that Tony Nesterov speaks 7(!) languages and that Felix Stüwe has the most marketplace experience in the room with 24 years. And with 27 years in the marketplace business, bol. is the company that has been around the longest.
We also had so many different brands and categories in one room: Fashion, Shoes, Sports & Outdoor, Home & Living, Garden & Appliances, Beauty, Health, Food & Pet. And we saw how well Allegro and bol. are already connected.
Add a really good talk with Julie Kirschey and Patricia Lay about growing and scaling on bol., and you get what made me proudest: the conversations went deep. One piece of feedback stuck with me: “You really built an amazing platform with these events. They are different and important, because you can connect and exchange on a deeper level with people who have the same issues in marketplace business and online retail as we do.”
Big thanks to our partner Bol International Partners, to Patricia Lay, Dominique van Bavel and, this time, Britt Verdaasdonk. And as always, thank you Ingrid Lommer, my business wife, and our team for the support!
We did this in Munich together with bol. last October too, and I was super pregnant at that event. Now our baby boy is almost 11 months old. What a year.
I’m really happy with how our smaller number of events went in 2026 and can’t wait for the next ones. We have 5 in planning, 3 of them before mid-February, and we’re going to new cities!
So who do I meet in 2027?
📍 Jan 20: Kitchen Party with Allegro, Munich
https://lnkd.in/e9qcmNPD
📍 Feb 1: Brick-build challenge with Base.com | DACH, Nuremberg (NEW CITY!)
https://lnkd.in/eB8ib4nk
📍 Feb 16: Shared Connect Event with Allegro and some other sponsors, Berlin
https://lnkd.in/ewNgvRWT
📍 Apr 6: With Allegro in Amsterdam (NEW COUNTRY!)
https://lnkd.in/eHVAB_dB
Just get yourself on our guest list and meet us in 2027!
#marketplaceuniverse #marketplacenetworking #marketplaceuniverseconnect #connectevent #ecommerce #networkingevent