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Its new owners aim to have Belgian toy store chain Dreamland profitable again by the end of next year, Koen Nolmans says. The owner of ToyChamp, which acquired 75 % of Dreamland’s shares from Colruyt Group, wants to focus more on experience, scale and data.
High conversion rate
Dreamland has been struggling with losses for several years, posting a loss of 21 million euros on total sales of 298 million through its 47 Belgian shops last year. In April, Colruyt Group sold 75 % of its shares to ToyChamp, the Nolmans family’s toy chain with 24 shops in the Netherlands and nine in Belgium. However, CEO Koen Nolmans has high hopes that by the end of next year Dreamland will be profitable again, he told Belgian newspaper De Tijd.
One factor that should contribute to this is economies of scale: Dreamland and ToyChamp will start purchasing together, saving on both purchasing and marketing costs. In addition, Nolmans wants to bring more experience into the shops, with animations and demonstrations. The CEO strongly believes in the power of physical shops: “We do not just sell products, we sell emotions. Children are impressed when they are suddenly standing in front of a gigantic rack of Lego in our shops.” As a result, ToyChamp achieves a conversion rate of up to 60 %, while online shops often have to do with just 2 %.
In the Xtra app
“The physical shop is experiencing a revival. The over-focus on online growth has stopped”, Nolmans believes. Web shops like Amazon, Bol and Zalando are now struggling. Nolmans thinks that Dreamland too put too much focus on online in recent years, while profits did not follow. Still, ToyChamp is also investing in online: the retailer is doing online marketing, including videos on social media. Above all, however, the webshop has to put the brand in the spotlight and attract people to the shops, because that is where the retailer makes money.
For Nolmans, digitisation revolves around data, and Dreamland has an important trump card there, as it is part of Colruyt Group’s digital Xtra platform. Together, Dreamland and ToyChamp may become more visible in the Xtra app and in Colruyt shops. More synergies are yet to come, but for now the two brands will continue to co-exist.
