The complete reference for Kaufland's Seller API. Authentication, product data, order management, and multi-country storefront integration — for Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Austria.
Kaufland Marketplace (formerly Kaufland.de Marketplace, and before that real.de) is one of Germany's fastest-growing e-commerce platforms. Backed by the Schwarz Group (Europe's largest retailer, which also owns Lidl), Kaufland has expanded from a German-only marketplace to a multi-country platform operating in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Austria. The marketplace hosts over 7,000 sellers offering more than 30 million products.
The Kaufland Seller API provides programmatic access to all core seller operations: creating and managing units (offers), submitting product data for catalog creation, processing orders, and handling returns. The API is RESTful with JSON payloads, but unlike Allegro (OAuth2) or Amazon (SP-API with AWS Signature), Kaufland uses a custom HMAC-SHA256 signature-based authentication scheme.
Kaufland's terminology differs from other marketplaces. What other platforms call "listings" or "offers," Kaufland calls "units" — a unit represents your specific offer (price, stock, condition, shipping) for a product identified by its EAN. The product data (title, description, images, attributes) is separate from the unit and shared across all sellers offering the same EAN, similar to bol.com's model.
For sellers targeting Central European markets, Kaufland's multi-storefront architecture is a significant advantage — a single API integration lets you sell across five countries. However, the HMAC signature implementation, category-specific attributes, and multi-locale content requirements add complexity. This guide covers everything you need to build a working Kaufland integration or evaluate whether a tool like Marqetir should handle it for you.
Last updated: March 2026
Kaufland does not use OAuth2. Instead, every request must be signed with an HMAC-SHA256 signature. This is more complex to implement initially but eliminates the need for token refresh flows.
Shop-Client-Key: <your_client_key>Your public API client key from the seller portal
Shop-Timestamp: <unix_timestamp>Current Unix timestamp in seconds (must be within 15 minutes of server time)
Shop-Signature: <hmac_sha256_signature>HMAC-SHA256 of: method + URL + body + timestamp, signed with your secret key
Signature computation:
HMAC-SHA256(secret_key, method + \n + url + \n + body + \n + timestamp)For GET requests with no body, use an empty string for the body component.
The Kaufland Seller API base URL is https://sellerapi.kaufland.de/v2. All endpoints require HMAC-SHA256 authentication headers.
| Method | Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|---|
| POST | /units | Create a new unit (offer) for a product |
| PATCH | /units/{id} | Update unit price, stock, or shipping |
| GET | /units | List all your units with filters |
| GET | /orders | Retrieve orders by status and date |
| PATCH | /order-units/{id} | Update order unit (ship, cancel) |
| POST | /product-data | Submit product data for catalog creation |
| GET | /product-data/{ean} | Retrieve product data by EAN |
| GET | /categories | Browse the category tree |
| GET | /categories/{id}/attributes | Get required attributes for a category |
| POST | /product-data/import | Bulk import product data via CSV |
Apply at sellerportal.kaufland.de. Requirements include: valid EU business registration, VAT ID, European bank account, and product liability insurance for the German market. Approval takes 3-7 business days. You gain access to all five country storefronts (DE, CZ, SK, PL, AT) through a single account.
Go to Settings then API Keys in the Kaufland Seller Portal. Generate a client key (public) and secret key (private). The secret key is shown only once — store it securely. You can create multiple key pairs for different applications.
Build a request signing function that computes the HMAC-SHA256 signature for every API call. The signature covers the HTTP method, full URL, request body, and timestamp. Most programming languages have built-in HMAC libraries. Test your implementation against the examples in Kaufland's API documentation.
Use GET /categories to browse the category tree. Retrieve required attributes for each category via GET /categories/{id}/attributes. Kaufland enforces category-specific mandatory attributes — an offer will be rejected if required attributes are missing. The category tree varies slightly across storefronts.
For new products (EANs not in Kaufland's catalog), submit product data via POST /product-data including title, description, images, and category attributes. Then create units (offers) via POST /units with your price, stock, condition, and shipping configuration. For existing products, skip the product data step and create units directly.
To sell across multiple Kaufland countries, create separate units for each storefront by specifying the locale parameter (de_DE, cs_CZ, sk_SK, pl_PL, de_AT). Each storefront requires localized product data (title and description in the local language). Pricing and shipping configurations are set per storefront.
Skip the HMAC signing, category mapping, and multi-storefront complexity. Marqetir connects to Kaufland's Seller API and manages your listings across all five countries automatically.
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Common questions about integrating with the Kaufland Seller API.