Forbes, 7 May 2026, Jana Pšeničková

It has more than twenty years of history behind it and is now the largest Czech-owned domestic online marketplace. Aukro, founded in 2003 in Zlín as part of the Polish Allegro Group, underwent a rebirth several years ago.

The first came when it was bought out of Polish ownership by Václav Liška, who was involved in Aukro’s very beginnings and remains a minority investor through the Leverage group. The second came in 2019, when the investment group Pale Fire Capital entered the company. It transformed a loss-making and declining business into a successful marketplace in Central and Eastern Europe.

Today, Aukro is not only growing, but also profitable. Last year alone, more than 6.3 million transactions took place on the portal, the platform recorded its highest number of newly registered users in the past five years — more than 300,000 — and it also entered five new regions.

Almost four years ago, Peter Topor joined Aukro as its new CEO, bringing previous experience from leading teams at companies such as Footshop and GymBeam. When he joined, Aukro provided services only in the Czech Republic. With his arrival, expansion into other countries began, with Slovakia being the first.

“One of the two main pillars of our focus is collectibles, of which more than CZK 1.5 billion worth are sold in the Czech Republic alone,” says Peter Topor.

“The countries into which we have expanded therefore essentially correspond to the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. They share part of their history, similar collecting sentiment, and cultural proximity,” he adds. Cross-border trade is therefore driven by items such as paintings, porcelain, and coins.

But practically anything can be bought and sold on Aukro; it works like any other online marketplace. Its advantage, however, is that thanks to its expansion into Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Austria, and Germany, it is now a platform that can easily get goods across borders.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are selling to a Hungarian or a Croatian. All you need is a code, you hand over the parcel, and Aukro delivers it anywhere we operate,” says the CEO, according to whom Aukro will launch full operations across Poland this year.

One of the key things that has changed in recent years is the safety of trading on Aukro. The marketplace protects both the buyer and the seller. In other words, it ensures that the seller receives payment for goods someone else has bought and that the goods are of the quality that was promised.

“The system is simple; you only need to register. When making a purchase, you then choose secure payment, which essentially means that the money does not go directly to the seller’s account. It first goes to us,” Peter Topor explains.

Once Aukro has the money in its account, it tells the seller that they can send the goods. The buyer then has seven days after delivery to inform the platform whether everything was in order and whether they received the goods they ordered. Aukro then releases the money to the seller’s account.

In addition, Aukro has a service that monitors and prevents fraudulent attacks. In practice, it prevents attackers from writing to users and trying to lure them, for example, into handing over access to their bank accounts.

“Last year, more than 98 percent of transactions went very well on the first attempt, and around two percent were captured by our program because users had some discrepancies. If hacker attacks occur with the aim of committing fraud, we work with users and the police to uncover them,” Topor emphasizes.

Registration on Aukro is free. The marketplace takes a commission from every sale, which is automatically deducted from the transaction. The commission ranges from five to eight percent. Most orders are delivered through Aukro’s own delivery service, which enables sellers to ship to all countries.

“The fact that as a seller I do not have to deal with how to send the item, how I will receive the money, or write anyone an address or bank account number makes Aukro’s services exceptional in this segment, precisely because of the emphasis on security. We place great importance on preventing anyone from trying to extract data from our clients or defraud them. We do not provide their contacts to anyone,” says the platform’s CEO.

Goods can be sold on Aukro either by auction or at a fixed price. Auctions start at one crown or another low amount. The buyer follows the individual bids throughout the process, which settle at a final price over seven or ten days.

“If it happens that no one is interested in the goods, we very simply and automatically renew the auction and continue looking for a potential buyer. If one is found, they put the item in their cart just as they would when shopping in an e-shop, and we simply send the seller a code under which they send the package,” explains Peter Topor.

Aukro currently has more than one million users annually and an average of 7.5 million visits per month. With turnover exceeding CZK 3 billion, it ranks among the top twenty e-commerce businesses in the Czech Republic.

In Slovakia, where the marketplace entered three years ago, turnover has grown into the hundreds of millions of crowns over the past two years. That is why Aukro opened five more new regions last year.

The goal is clear: to become the leading player in these countries in the fast-growing segments of art, collectibles, and resale within the first nine months of this year.

“This year, we want to open two more markets.”

“At the same time, at the end of last year we bought a collectibles portal in Croatia called Aukcije.hr, which is essentially our first foreign acquisition. We are currently working on integrating it,” the CEO reveals.

“At this moment, it is important for us to grow not only with local sellers, but also with local buyers, and to become their first choice in both segments on which we focus. Then we will choose further markets. This year, we want to open two more,” he adds.

Geographically, Aukro wants to remain in Central and Eastern Europe. Markets such as the United Kingdom or Scandinavia are not attractive to the company for now. This is mainly due to the historical connection with countries that border the Czech Republic and through which it then connects with others.

In the territory that once formed Austria-Hungary, Aukro intends to become number one in collectibles, but it also wants to dominate the re-commerce segment. That means making it as easy as possible for ordinary users to sell second-hand items, while also helping B2C companies sell goods that are often damaged, returned, or sitting in storage.

“In essence, we want to give things a new life, because otherwise they would quite possibly end up in landfills. We see great value in an environmentally considerate approach. At the same time, there is a strong economic aspect, because companies will not incur a loss, they will not have to pay anyone to dispose of the goods, and they will still make a profit by selling them on Aukro,” Topor explains.

According to him, this is also why giants such as IKEA and Zalando are moving in a similar direction.

Aukro also helps Alza and other major market players. “Just to give you an idea, Alza trades goods worth hundreds of millions of crowns with us. These are hundreds of thousands of items that have already been manufactured but would otherwise not find their way to consumers. Alza is also one of our main sellers, because it is strong not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Slovakia and Hungary. But other major entities are joining as well, as are dozens of small entrepreneurs.”

Among Aukro’s biggest competitors are Allegro, under which Aukro once operated, and China’s Temu. According to Topor, they use very aggressive marketing and offer goods at low prices. He points out that Aukro had to learn how to function alongside them rather than fight them.

Last year, Aukro grew its revenues by 21 percent, and the number of orders and listed items also increased. “Even so, it does not help us much that Temu in particular circumvents legislative requirements that apply to Czech and European sellers, putting them at a significant disadvantage,” says Topor.

“I hope this will improve, because it is not fair that Czech authorities require something from Czech sellers but do not require the same from Chinese or other marketplaces. That does not seem right to me,” notes Aukro’s CEO.

Among the most expensive items sold through the online marketplace are gold coins, which can sell for several million crowns. Collecting them has recently become very popular, and there is great passion hidden in numismatics. Pokémon cards have also been among the most interesting categories in recent years. Their selection on Aukro is truly broad, and they are popular not only in the Czech Republic but across Europe.

Other valuable items include sports cards, jerseys, and everything connected with sport. Finally, the vintage segment is increasingly coming into the spotlight — especially motorcycles, cars, and spare parts.

“There we now offer the possibility not only of classic online auctions, but also, for example, of connecting online auctions with hall auctions. Twice a year, in cooperation with Retro Garage, we have selected items of historic cars and motorcycles, and there we are really talking about millions.”

The majority owner of Aukro today is the investment group Pale Fire Capital. Under its investment leadership, Aukro began an operational and technological transformation, focused on investing in user safety, and fundamentally changed its entire marketing approach.

Pale Fire Capital brought new life back to a marketplace that had experienced a major boom in its early days but had gradually declined over the years.

“Thanks mainly go to David Holý, Dušan Šenkypl, and Jan Barta. Essentially, this trio turned Aukro toward major growth,” praises Peter Topor. Minority investors include Leverage Capital and two former Aukro managers.

Altogether, the marketplace has around 55 employees, based in Prague, Brno, and Zlín. When Peter Topor took over as CEO, there were almost twice as many. His task was to introduce principles that would make the business more efficient while still allowing it to grow. This was achieved thanks to artificial intelligence and algorithms that automated some processes.

“Over the past five years, we have grown by an average of sixteen percent, while almost doubling our revenues and profitability over the past three years and investing heavily in expansion. I consider that a major success and believe we will continue to grow,” concludes Aukro’s CEO.