Bol, the biggest on-line gross sales platform within the Netherlands, is permitting sellers from outdoors the European Union to hitch for the primary time. This yr, the primary 100 non-EU sellers are anticipated to hitch. The corporate emphasizes strict high quality management for choices from international locations resembling China. Merchandise should be stocked inside Europe.
In contrast to within the 5 largest ecommerce markets in Europe, ‘SME-ally’ Amazon is just not the market chief within the Netherlands and Belgium. Bol has held the main place in each international locations for years, with a buying and selling quantity of 5.9 billion euros, income of three.1 billion euros, and a revenue (underlying EBITDA) of 185 million euros. That mentioned, Amazon is slowly catching up.
Third-party gross sales
Following the instance of the American ecommerce big, bol additionally opened its doorways to exterior gross sales companions in 2011. The variety of companions from the Netherlands and Belgium – and later from different European international locations – grew to over 50,000. At its peak, round two-thirds of bol’s buying and selling quantity got here from third-party gross sales. In recent times, that share has declined to round half, and the variety of companions has additionally barely decreased. Like Amazon, bol affords providers in areas resembling logistics and promoting.
Competitors from China
Similar to Amazon, Bol is going through rising worldwide competitors, particularly from China. To counter this, the market chief is now opening its platform to sellers from outdoors the EU. “We’re doing very effectively”, mentioned bol’s ecommerce director Oscar Hundman in Dutch newspaper NRC.
‘We’re doing very effectively’
“If we glance purely at ourselves, we’re not but seeing main results from the expansion of international opponents. However after all we are able to see the market altering, and we need to be a part of that.”
Hundman additional commented on the broader opening of the platform: “We see that shopper wants are altering. Persons are more and more conscious that there are nice merchandise accessible everywhere in the world. We need to reply to that and we need to make certain customers haven’t any purpose to buy elsewhere. Particularly not on platforms the place low-quality items are being bought.”
Assortment growth
Bol doesn’t goal to all of a sudden add numerous new merchandise or sellers, says Hundman. Fairly, the platform needs to broaden its assortment with gadgets not but accessible on the positioning. Bol is paying shut consideration to the standard of each the sellers and the merchandise, which should be saved in Europe. “For us, high quality is just not a promise however a requirement. That’s the reason we cannot simply throw the platform open large proper now.”
‘High quality is just not a promise, however a requirement’
Based on Hundman, opening as much as high-quality companions from outdoors the EU will assist bol “stay as regionally related as potential for customers. So long as clients maintain coming to us to buy, we are able to maintain these a lot bigger opponents at bay.”
