Background & Opportunity
AREBOS’s starting point was highly personal: from 2005 to 2008, Korhan Canbolat sold car-polishing products on eBay.de and personally handled product selection, purchasing, sales and customer service. That model could work at small scale, but increasing product, order and channel complexity created a structural problem. The business needed repeatable systems rather than continued dependence on the founder’s time. During 2009–2012, Canbolat Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH was established and the company developed Athenos, an e-commerce ERP system that AREBOS describes as one of the early pure-play e-commerce ERP systems. AREBOS was registered as a brand in 2011. The strategic shift was therefore not simply to sell more products; it was to build the technical and organizational infrastructure required to operate a broader assortment across more channels. From 2012 to 2019, the company used software development for its own needs and invested in fulfillment, warehouse real estate and overseas activities during 2017–2019. Its model combined own-brand and multi-brand products, arebos.de, third-party marketplaces and direct-to-consumer distribution. The assortment spans DIY tools, outdoor products, home goods, sports and children’s products. The available financial evidence indicates the scale reached by the wider Canbolat Holding group. In 2023, consolidated revenue was €84.160481 million, including about €82.095 million from core e-commerce. Consolidated net profit was approximately €1.30396 million, with 140 average employees. These figures are not reported as AREBOS-brand-only results. Official AREBOS information states that, by the status shown on its 2026 pages, the business covered 13 countries and 17 online markets. The evidence supports a capability-building journey, but it does not quantify the contribution of any one initiative.
Original Problem / Model
The initial challenge was founder dependence: one person handled the core commercial workflow.
Turning Point
More products, orders and markets required automation and repeatable processes.
Core Decision
A single eBay channel and one national market would constrain future scale.
Execution / Model / Acquisition Changes
Athenos ERP and later software development created an internal operating capability.
Measurable Results
Brand building, fulfillment investment, marketplace diversification and international expansion broadened the model.
Lessons
The case shows scale, but group-level results cannot be assigned to one decision alone.