How to Sell Trading Cards Online Across Europe

Every seller on Citadel gets their own shop, and setting one up starts with a free account. During setup you choose your seller type, because EU law requires marketplaces to distinguish between private and professional sellers. A private seller is an individual selling a personal collection — no business registration is required. A professional seller trades as a business, and EU consumer protection law applies to those sales, including the 14-day right of withdrawal and the two-year legal guarantee. Buyers always see which type of shop they are buying from, so the rules are clear on both sides. Citadel's marketplace is young and growing, run by Castellum - Forge s.r.o. from Nitra, Slovakia, and every shop — private or professional — activates only after the seller passes Stripe identity verification, which keeps the seller base verified as it grows.

The fastest way to build inventory on Citadel is to scan it. The AI card scanner reads a photo of a card — from a phone camera or a desktop webcam — and identifies the exact card and printing, then shows its current market price drawn from live European market prices. From there, a card in your collection becomes a listing in a few taps: pick quantity, condition and price, and it goes live in your shop. The free plan includes 50 scans per month across all seven supported games, including Japanese Pokémon cards, and the same catalog powers listings, so items are matched to the correct set and printing rather than a loose text description. Because prices are stored in euros with automatic US dollar and British pound conversion, you set one price and buyers across currencies see a figure they understand. See how card pricing works for the details.

Shipping on Citadel is built for cross-border selling. Sellers create shipping profiles with country-based zones — up to 20 zones per profile, each covering the countries you choose with its own rate — so domestic, EU and worldwide shipping can all be priced differently, and buyers in countries you do not serve simply cannot check out. Weight-based profiles are supported for combined shipping, using the weight and dimensions recorded on listings. Beyond standard listings, sellers can offer preorders for upcoming releases: the buyer pays at checkout and the order ships around the release date, which is shown on the listing. Sellers can also set per-buyer purchase limits, with separate limits for personal and business buyers, which is useful for allocation-constrained sealed product. For delivery protection, high-value orders require tracked shipping, and an order without tracking by its deadline is automatically refunded — details are covered in the buyer protection guide.

Payments run through Stripe. Before a shop can start selling, the seller completes Stripe Connect onboarding, which includes KYC identity verification and bank account setup — this is what activates the shop. Buyers pay inside the app at checkout, and proceeds are paid out to the seller's verified bank account through Stripe. Citadel charges a 1.5% platform commission on marketplace sales, and the fee breakdown is shown transparently at checkout, so there is no guessing about what a sale nets. Because every seller has passed identity verification, buyers know who they are dealing with, and because sellers are labeled private or professional, the applicable consumer rights are clear before payment. If a buyer reports that an order did not arrive, the in-app dispute process applies: tracked shipments can go to a carrier investigation held for up to 90 days, protecting sellers who shipped correctly as well as buyers.

Yes — Citadel was built for EU marketplace selling, so VAT tooling is part of the shop rather than an external spreadsheet. VAT-registered professional sellers get per-line VAT invoicing on their orders, with OSS support for cross-border sales to consumers in other EU countries. For business buyers, Citadel applies the reverse charge at 0% VAT when the buyer's VAT number has been validated via the EU VIES system, with item prices shown as net. Sellers dealing in used goods bought without deductible VAT — for example, cards bought from private collectors — can opt into the margin scheme, keeping per-item purchase records as required. A seller's own VAT number is likewise verified through VIES when the shop is set up. Private sellers need none of this and can ignore it entirely. Citadel is a platform that connects buyers and sellers, not the merchant of record, so sellers remain responsible for their own tax obligations.