Colruyt starts online volume deals in response to Amazon

Belgian Colruyt Group is launching a new online platform today, where it offers discounts on large volumes of a varying selection of A-brands. Until now, Belgian consumers have mainly found such offers on foreign web shops.

Limited offers

The new promotion platform, which is offered via Colruyt Group’s online service Collect & Go, is a big swing from the retailer’s current policy of only offering a lowest price strategy for offline offers. However, “In recent years it has become clear that customers are not only happy to buy their weekly groceries online, but also that an increasing number are willing to buy large quantities when there are substantial discounts”, Collect & Go’s Tom Deprater explains.

On the new platform, called Deals!, customers find weekly promotions on large volumes of pet food, care and maintenance products, detergent, stationery and baby items. All offers concern A-brands, but with a different perfume or different packaging than what is found in the physical store or in Colruyt’s webshop. Moreover, all promotions are limited and first come, first serve.

New target audience

Because Deals! is a platform for individuals, there is a limit on the number of deals customers can put in their shopping cart. Orders are delivered nationwide for 3.99 euros for orders under 60 euros and free of charge for items above that number. However, customers cannot combine purchases with their Collect & Go shopping to reach that threshold.

The retailer hopes to appeal to a new target audience: at present, customers looking for bargains mainly find what they are looking for at foreign web shops that also deliver in Belgium. With this move, Colruyt Group is formulating an answer to the often sensational volume offers that web shops such as bol.com, Veepee and Amazon use. By offering large packs of well-known FMCG brands at great discounts, these “pure players” skim off sales from traditional food retail – something that Belgium’s leading supermarket chain clearly does not want to happen.