Allegro Hungary – a new market for Polish sellers

Allegro has quietly changed the rules of the game. First the Czech Republic, then Slovakia, and since the end of 2024, Hungary. Suddenly, a market you once had to ‘break into’ has become something you switch on with a single click in your seller panel. It sounds like a slide from a sales presentation. In practice, there’s a lot of truth in it, but also a few catches that nobody mentions on that slide.

And this is where it gets interesting. Because for some, ‘Allegro Hungary’ is a real chance to open up a new source of revenue, while for others it’s a quick way to burn through budget and nerves in a market they don’t understand. Hungarian shoppers pay in forints, often prefer to pay the courier in cash on delivery and can spend weeks reading reviews before they buy anything. This isn’t Poland with a different flag.

In this article, we take allegro.hu apart piece by piece: what this market is really worth, what it costs to get in, how to set it up technically and, most importantly, who it pays off for and who should hold off for now. No beating around the bush. Let’s get started.

What is Allegro Hungary and when did allegro.hu launch?

Allegro Hungary is the Hungarian edition of Allegro, available at allegro.hu and launched in the fourth quarter of 2024. It’s the group’s fourth market, alongside Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. For a Polish seller, this means one thing: another country you can list in without setting up a separate company or a separate account.

The easiest way to picture it is this. Allegro in Hungary is your Polish Allegro, moved to the banks of the Danube. The same platform, the same seller panel, the same mechanisms. What changes is the customer, who speaks Hungarian and pays in forints.

The whole thing works on a ‘list once, sell everywhere’ model. You don’t build a new account from scratch. You add shipping rates for the country in question and switch on listing sharing, and the platform translates your content and converts prices into the local currency. That very simplicity is its biggest advantage and, as you’ll see shortly, a source of illusions. Because ‘easy to switch on’ is not the same as ‘easy to make money from’.

For whom is Allegro Hungary an opportunity, and for whom a trap?

The short answer: Allegro Hungary pays off for businesses that have well-organised sales on Allegro in Poland, a competitive price and a product that can hold its own in a market with lower purchasing power. It tends to become a trap for those who treat Hungary as a ‘free add-on’ and switch it on without a plan. Below, we break this down into specifics.

Who really benefits from selling on Allegro Hungary?

The biggest winners are sellers who are already doing well on Allegro in Poland and are looking for diversification, not a lifeline. If you have a smooth process (listings, logistics, returns handling) and a product with a reasonable margin, Hungary is a natural next step. The ‘list once, sell everywhere’ model keeps the cost of entry itself low.

The nature of the product can also bode well. Polish goods have a reputation in Hungary for being solid and sensibly priced, which gives you a ready-made foothold for building trust. Categories with recurring demand and a manageable shipping weight tend to do well.

There’s one more condition we spell out to clients at Raise Your Sales: you need pricing headroom. Hungarians have lower purchasing power than Poles. If your ‘razor-thin’ price barely holds up in Poland, it will most likely stop holding up in Hungary once it has been converted and shipping has been added.

Who should hold off for now?

Hold off if your sales on Allegro in Poland aren’t in order. Hungary won’t fix anything; it will only multiply the problems you already have: weak listings, thin margins, chaotic logistics. A new market is a multiplier, not a sticking plaster.

Heavy, bulky or low-value products also call for caution. With these, cross-border shipping costs can eat up the entire margin. The same goes for heavily regulated categories, where local requirements and formalities come into play.

We also advise against going in ‘on a trial basis, with no budget and no time’. The first few months are about building visibility and trust, and they rarely bring an instant return. In fact, this is one of the things we tell clients honestly at Raise Your Sales: anyone who isn’t prepared to give this market a few months and a real budget is better off not starting at all. Switching Hungary on takes a moment. Turning it into a profitable channel doesn’t.

How big is the Hungarian e-commerce market in 2026?

Hungarian e-commerce was worth around 1,920 billion forints in 2024, or roughly €4.8 billion, and is growing at about 15 per cent year on year (market data from industry reports, not from accounts managed by RYS). Online shopping already accounts for roughly 10 per cent of retail trade. It’s not a giant on the scale of Germany, but it’s a healthily growing market and, importantly, one that still hasn’t been carved up by a handful of dominant players.

The most interesting thing, though, isn’t the size itself but how open Hungarians are to buying from abroad. That’s exactly why Allegro’s move into this particular market makes sense.

Table 1. The Hungarian e-commerce market in numbers (market data)

How much does it cost to sell on Allegro Hungary? Commission and the 0% programme

Since 2 February 2026, Allegro has been running a 0% sales commission programme for new export listings. In practice, this means the cost of launching in Hungary is exceptionally low right now, and the ‘what if it doesn’t work out?’ barrier drops considerably. There hasn’t been a better time to test this market since it opened.

You don’t set up a separate account, so you don’t bear the costs of running a second business or a second integration. You pay on the existing terms for what you actually sell, and the commission promotion also cushions the ramp-up period.

Be careful not to fall into the ‘if it’s 0%, it’s free’ trap. Commission is one of the costs, not the only one. Factor in cross-border logistics, any VAT accounting costs, an advertising budget to build visibility and the time it takes to handle customer service in Hungarian. Real profitability is the difference between the price and the sum of all these items, not the commission rate alone. Check the specific, current rates and programme terms in your seller panel before you launch, as Allegro is known to change them.

How do you start selling on Allegro Hungary step by step?

Getting started on Allegro Hungary comes down to five steps and doesn’t require a new account. You do everything from the panel you already know from Polish Allegro. Here’s the order in which to tackle them.

1. Add shipping rates for Hungary in the Allegro panel so that your listings can reach the Hungarian market in the first place.
2. Switch on listing sharing to allegro.hu for selected products.
3. Let the platform translate your content and convert prices into forints, then check the translations. The automatic translation is good, but product names and keywords are worth fine-tuning by hand.
4. Set up cross-border logistics, for example through Allegro’s own shipping service, ‘Wysyłam z Allegro’, or through local carriers (Allegro works with DHL, DPD and Packeta, among others).
5. Sort out your VAT – depending on your scale and sales model, this will mean either the VAT OSS scheme or local registration in Hungary.

Technically, the first four steps take an afternoon. The fifth, the tax step, is the one where it’s easiest to trip up, which is why we’ll come back to it in the section on mistakes.

How does selling on Allegro Hungary differ from selling in Poland?

The biggest difference is in the customer’s mind, not in the seller panel. The panel is the same, but the Hungarian shopper pays in forints and is happy to opt for cash on delivery. Anyone who ignores this ends up copying their Polish strategy one-to-one and then wonders why the results are poor.

On top of that, there’s lower purchasing power and different seasonality. Below are the key differences in one place.

Table 2. Selling on Allegro: Poland vs Hungary

One thing in this table surprises Polish sellers more than anything else. Cash on delivery, which is in retreat in Poland, still rules in Hungary. Half of customers would rather hand cash to the courier at the door. Ignore this, and some baskets simply won’t turn into purchases.

Which products sell best in Hungary?

In Hungary, fashion sells best online, accounting for more than a third of all internet purchases. Close behind are electronics and media, as well as food and personal care. That’s the first filter worth running your own product range through before you switch on allegro.hu.

Categories such as furniture, DIY products and cosmetics are also growing, although Hungarians still prefer to make some of their larger purchases in physical shops. For a Polish manufacturer or distributor, that’s a concrete pointer: the lighter and easier to ship the product, the better the cross-border maths looks.

There’s another advantage that doesn’t show up in the tables. Polish products have a good reputation in Hungary and are seen as solid and sensibly priced. That’s a ready-made foundation for building trust, which Hungarian customers need more of than Polish ones. If your product falls into a popular category and its price still holds up once converted into forints, you have a real foothold. If you’re already fighting for margin in Poland, work out first whether there will be anything left to live on in Hungary at all.

What mistakes do sellers most often make when entering Allegro Hungary?

The most common and most expensive mistake is ignoring VAT. Depending on your scale and sales model, you either settle it through VAT OSS or have to register locally in Hungary. Leaving this ‘for later’ can turn profitable sales into a problem with the tax authorities. It’s the first thing to sort out, not the last.

The second trap is treating Hungary like Poland with a different currency. Automatic translations left uncorrected, prices that don’t account for lower purchasing power, no option for the popular cash on delivery, no plan whatsoever for the name-day season. Each of these little things quietly drags down your conversion rate.

Is it worth entering Allegro Hungary in 2026?

Yes, for most sellers with well-organised sales on Allegro in Poland, expanding into Hungary in 2026 pays off, and the 0% commission programme for new export listings makes this an exceptionally good moment. A low cost of entry and a growing market is a combination you rarely come across. The condition, though, is the same as always: the product has to hold its own on price, and you have to give the channel time.

A sober word on the risks. This isn’t a machine for instant profit. Allegro doesn’t plan to make its entire foreign segment profitable until 2029, which shows clearly that building a position in a new market is a game of months, not days. If you’re after a quick win, this isn’t the place.

So the verdict is asymmetrical. For a business that’s ready, with pricing headroom and patience, Hungary is one of the cheapest diversification opportunities around today. For a business that wants to use it to patch up weak results in Poland, it’s a trap in attractive packaging.

Summary

Allegro Hungary is best seen not as ‘a new market to conquer’ but as a test of how well organised your own business is. The technical barrier has gone; what remains is the maturity barrier: a price with headroom, patience measured in months, and respect for the fact that Hungarian customers are different from Polish ones.

And that’s the crux of it. Hungary doesn’t reward haste or makeshift solutions; it rewards businesses that know why they’re going in. For some, it will become another healthy revenue pillar that is resilient to fluctuations in Poland. For others, it will be a costly lesson that a new market is a multiplier, not a sticking plaster.

If you want to find out which side of that line your product falls on before you spend your first zloty, book a free consultation with Raise Your Sales. We’ll go through your product range, margin and logistics, and tell you straight whether Allegro Hungary is an opportunity for you or a market it’s better to hold off on for now. No beating around the bush, just what genuinely pays off.