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Lithuania’s E-Commerce Ecosystem Is Strengthening: Technology Leaders Join Forces to Support Local Businesses

In the era of e-commerce growth, leading positions are dominated by large online retailers. A wide product assortment, reliable service, and strong brand recognition ensure high customer traffic and strong sales. Meanwhile, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) face an increasing challenge — surviving in the market with just a single sales channel is becoming more difficult, forcing them to look for new solutions.

Why Is Having Only Your Own Online Store No Longer Enough?

The key factors for competing successfully in the rapidly growing and expanding e-commerce sector are visibility, reach, and consistent customer traffic. As a result, a new trend is emerging in Lithuania’s e-commerce landscape — SMEs are increasingly expanding their sales channels and joining major online marketplaces.

Eglė Kondrotienė, Head of Marketplace Projects at Varlė.lt, notes that competing with major e-commerce platforms is nearly impossible for smaller sellers. Large marketplaces significantly outperform individual stores in terms of traffic and visibility, making integration into established platforms a key survival strategy.

“We see that sellers no longer need to be convinced of the benefits marketplaces provide — they are actively looking for ways to increase their visibility and reach. However, in the past, technological barriers often stood in the way. The main challenge was integrating product catalogs with marketplace platforms and ensuring real-time data updates and synchronization,” says the e-commerce specialist.

Automation: The Cure for Manual Work

To reduce technological barriers and optimize processes, Varlė.lt has joined forces with Lithuanian e-commerce technology professionals PrestaRock. The result of their partnership is a specialized integration module for the PrestaShop e-commerce system.

PrestaShop is one of the most popular content management systems among Lithuanian online stores, making this technological solution highly relevant for many businesses seeking easier integration into one of the country’s largest online marketplaces.

Until now, many businesses uploaded products to external platforms manually or relied on complex and expensive IT solutions. The new module fundamentally changes this approach by fully automating product catalog updates, price synchronization, and inventory management.

“Today, success in e-commerce depends not only on what you sell, but on how efficiently you manage your processes. If a seller has to spend time on manual administration, they lose the competitive edge. By developing this PrestaShop module, we provide a tool that enables even a small family-owned store to operate at the speed and quality level of major market players,” says Ričardas Šmaižys, Head of the e-commerce solutions agency PrestaRock.

„Varlė.lt“ Marketplace Manager Kondrotienė adds that the first clients are already testing the new plugin, and growing interest confirms that a simple and reliable “bridge” between online stores and the marketplace was highly anticipated.

“Our marketplace connects hundreds of active merchants, 90% of whom are Lithuanian companies. We believe that by investing in technological solutions, we can help even more local businesses grow,” says E. Kondrotienė. “We welcome around 60,000 potential customers daily and share these opportunities free of charge with all our partners. By leveraging our existing infrastructure, sellers can focus on product assortment, customer service, and business expansion.”

Lithuania’s E-Commerce Technology Ecosystem Is Maturing

This partnership also marks an important milestone in Lithuania’s local e-commerce technology ecosystem. Instead of waiting for innovation from abroad, Lithuanian technology developers and marketplace platforms are increasingly collaborating to create tools tailored specifically to the local market.

According to experts, such collaborations accelerate the digitalization of SMEs. Businesses no longer need to search for foreign partners or invest thousands in developing custom IT solutions — ready-to-use tools now allow them to start selling within days.

“Businesses using the PrestaShop platform can start selling on Varlė.lt without additional programming work. Meanwhile, companies that do not yet have their own online stores can avoid investing time and resources into building one, developing brand awareness, and attracting customers — we provide all of that,” concludes R. Šmaižys.