The Base Event 2026: What Actually Mattered for Selling Across the Balkans

On 1 April 2026 we were at The Base Event, at HALO Events Center in Bucharest. It is the first event Base Romania has organised for e-commerce in the Balkans: one day of talks plus an expo area, with eMAG as main partner and Trendyol as platinum partner, according to Income Magazine.

We went as LIQUIDLAB, with a CEO badge and the "LIQUIDLAB, A Hyvä Partner" T-shirt. As at eCommerce Talks 2025, we spent the day among merchants, marketplaces and vendors. Below are five things we brought home, plus four checks for a Magento store that wants to sell in Bulgaria or Hungary too.

Expo: sell in three countries from one account

At the eMAG Marketplace booth the message was on the walls: "Vinde în 3 țări cu un singur cont" (sell in 3 countries with one account), with delivery to Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary through Fulfilment by eMAG. The booth listed 3 steps: create a seller account, list your products, start selling. The banner above said "Extinde-ți afacerea regional" (grow your business regionally), and Trendyol promoted its booth with "Unlock new opportunities for your business".

For a Magento store, this means the first step towards Bulgaria and Hungary does not have to be a new website. It can be a clean product feed, with stock and prices in sync, sent to a marketplace that already delivers in all 3 countries.

Heureka Group: cash, mobile and trust in CEE

Heureka Group, the company behind price comparison sites such as compari.ro, árukereső and pazaruvaj, talked about "the decade of uncertainty" for comparison platforms. Its slide "CEE: small distances, very different behaviours" showed how differently neighbouring countries buy:

• Romania: 51% of orders are paid in cash, mobile has a 74% share, and loyalty to local stores is medium, so shoppers are open to buying cross-border.
• Bulgaria: 60% of orders paid in cash, the highest cash-on-delivery share, 68% mobile, and "extreme high" loyalty to local stores, the highest in the region.
• Czechia, for reference: the most developed market, with 62% mobile and 40% of payments made online by card.

The conclusion for Romania and Bulgaria was the same: price and trust decide, and a lack of trust can block an order. Convenience only matters where fast shipping exists, which means the major cities.

AI in e-commerce: visible in answers, not just in Google

Heureka also showed a map of where AI in e-commerce is heading, built with Claude ("I asked Claude how it sees the future of AI in the ecommerce industry"). For the "Now, 2026" stage it listed 4 shifts: product research through ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, checkout completed by an AI agent on the shopper's behalf, real-time 1:1 personalisation, and Answer Engine Optimisation, meaning brands compete for visibility in LLMs, not for page rank.

For 2027 to 2029 it showed agent-to-agent commerce between brand and buyer AI agents, and the EU Digital Product Passport. For a store, the practical part starts now: complete, structured product data that an AI assistant can read.

Amazon: the flywheel that drives growth

Amazon brought "Unlock Growth at the Amazon Marketplace", on a slide dated "Base Event, 1st of April 2026". Its formula named 3 things customers want: wide selection, low prices and the highest convenience. On the flywheel, a lower cost structure leads to lower prices, then a better customer experience, more traffic, more selling partners, more selection and, again, growth.

theMarketer: top 30 stores, segments and per-country flows

theMarketer's talk opened with a top 30 of the most visited stores, sourced from a MerchantPro report. The top 3 were emag.ro, trendyol.com and temu.com, and trendyol.com had climbed 9 places. Only 11 of the 30 stores were Romanian, and amazon.com was 28th.

Next came an RFM segmentation, by days since the last order and number of orders. In the example on the slide, 43.11% of customers sat in the "Lost" segment, with 5,100,663 lei attached to it, while "Champions" were just 0.17%. The gap between those two segments is where automation earns its keep.

The flow on screen is easy to copy: an added tag starts the automation, it waits 2 days, then a country filter sends the feedback email in the customer's language: "Cum ne-am descurcat?" for Romania, "Hogy teljesítettünk?" for Hungary, "Как се справихме?" for Bulgaria and "How did we do?" for everyone else. For SMS, theMarketer stressed the alphanumeric sender ID: the brand is recognised instantly, the message feels less like spam or fraud, and it is more likely to be opened and acted on.

What it means for a Magento store

The 3 talks and the expo all pointed the same way: when you sell in another country, what matters is cash on delivery, the mobile checkout, your product data and talking to customers in their own language. You fix those in the store, not in its theme.

What you can do this week

• Cash on delivery: if you sell in Romania or Bulgaria, keep it visible in the checkout. On Heureka's slide, 51% and 60% of orders were paid in cash.
• Mobile: go through the checkout on a phone, from cart to confirmation. Mobile had 74% in Romania and 68% in Bulgaria.
• Post-order emails: split the feedback flow by country and language. theMarketer's example sent the email after 2 days, in 4 versions.
• Lost customers: check what share of your customers falls in the "Lost" segment of an RFM analysis. In the example on the slide it was 43.11%.

Update, October 2026: after The Base Event we had our first stand, at GPeC SUMMIT on 26 May, were a Bronze Sponsor at Meet Magento Italy 2026, attended Meet Magento France 2026 and came back with a stand to GPeC SUMMIT on 13 October 2026. We wrote about payments and couriers in the checkout (euPlatesc, Mollie, Cargus and Innoship) in our post on Hyvä Checkout for Romanian stores.

Thank you

Thank you to the Base Romania team for their first event in Bucharest, and to the speakers from Heureka Group, Amazon and theMarketer for slides with real numbers on them.

Want your Magento store to sell in Bulgaria or Hungary too? Book a free strategy call and we will tell you what to get ready first.