Prisma.fi opens its marketplace to third-party sellers

Prisma.fi will become a marketplace in late 2026, with third-party retailers selling products alongside Finnish retail group S Group. The first customers will gain access to the revamped service in October. According to a report published by Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat on 30 September, S Group aims to launch with a few dozen sellers and nearly double its current online product range. For Finland’s franchise community, the development is primarily about changing retail sales channels and the competitive landscape.

Third-party sellers join the Prisma.fi range

At the heart of the change is an expansion of the online shop’s operating model. Prisma.fi will no longer offer only S Group’s own range: products from other sellers and brands will also appear on the platform. S Group says the range will expand gradually and partners will be carefully selected. Based on the report, this is therefore not a service that any retailer can simply sign up to.

The target is to bring in a few dozen sellers at launch. At the same time, the existing online range is intended to almost double. These are launch targets, not confirmed figures for participating sellers or the final product range. The marketplace is reported to open to its first customers in October, with the wider change taking place in late 2026.

The initial additions will focus on electronics, home and sports products. For franchisees and chains operating in these categories, the news provides a concrete reason to follow the launch. However, the information released so far is not enough to assess how directly the new offering will compete with an individual business’s range.

The report does not name the initial sellers or their brands. At this stage, the planned near-doubling of the range therefore indicates the intended scale of the change, rather than which individual products customers will be able to buy. Nor does the report give further details of how sellers will be spread across the different product categories.

One online shop, multiple retailers

The marketplace’s revenue model is based on the platform operator taking a share of third-party sellers’ sales. According to Ilta-Sanomat, Amazon and Gigantti.fi, for example, use a similar combination of their own products and other retailers’ offerings. The Prisma.fi change brings this model to S Group’s online non-food retail business.

S Group says the sellers on the revamped service will be from Finland and elsewhere in Europe. They must agree to Prisma’s contractual terms. S Group will set the marketplace rules and share responsibility for the customer experience with sellers. The report does not disclose the commission rate or detail the other commercial terms of seller agreements.

For customers, the service is intended to remain a familiar, unified online shop. According to S Group, purchases will be made as before and will continue to earn S-Bonus loyalty rewards. Based on the company’s description, adding third-party sellers will therefore not mean customers being redirected to separate online shops to make their purchases.

A unified shopping experience and a multi-seller operating model are two parallel features of the change. It will be worth watching how they work in practice once the service opens. The published report does not specify, for example, how different sellers’ products will be presented to customers or how each seller’s responsibilities will be explained at different stages of the purchase process.

Non-food range expands, groceries remain separate

The change concerns online sales of non-food goods. Customers will still not be able to buy groceries through Prisma.fi; S Group’s online grocery business will continue to operate through S-kaupat.fi. This distinction matters because the Prisma name is also associated with groceries. The marketplace change announced here does not merge the two online services.

S Group says the aim is to strengthen Finnish retail’s competitiveness against global e-commerce giants. This is the company’s stated objective. The report provides no projections for expected sales, market share or the impact on customer numbers at other online retailers operating in Finland.

The timetable also needs to be read carefully. October marks the opening to the first customers, and the range will expand in stages. The report does not establish that the entire planned offering will be available to all customers from the beginning of the month. No exact opening date is given.

What should the franchise community watch?

The report does not describe Prisma.fi’s marketplace model as a franchise arrangement. Nor does it say that franchise chains or their franchisees will be joining. Its relevance to Finland’s franchise community lies in the changing online retail landscape, rather than any confirmed new franchise agreements or franchisee recruitment.

Businesses assessing a potential new sales channel should distinguish between the information announced and the questions still unanswered. What is known is that there will be selected Finnish and European sellers, common contractual terms and a sales-based fee payable to the platform. Pricing details, entry requirements and the practical division of responsibilities are not clear from the published report. They cannot be inferred from how other marketplaces operate.

For business owners monitoring the competition, the most useful focus will be the actual range available at launch. The emphasis on electronics, home and sports products offers a starting point, but a more precise comparison will only be possible once sellers and products are announced. The same applies to pricing: the report contains no information on future product prices or promotions.

Practical takeaway: monitor the sellers and product range appearing on Prisma.fi in October. If the marketplace interests you as a sales channel, first establish the contractual terms, costs and responsibilities, and check that they are compatible with your own franchise network’s agreements.