Colruyt seeks to expand Professionals chain

Belgian retailer Colruyt Group wants to expand its B2B chain Colruyt Professionals significantly. Its third store will open next week, a fourth is planned – but the target is to have ten stores nationwide.

Expanding outwards

Colruyt will open its first Professionals store in Wallonia next Wednesday, 25 September, in Liège – following the first two stores in Brussels. A fourth store will open in or near Wallonia’s other major city, Charleroi, before the end of the year. Colruyt hopes to be able to open ten Professionals stores throughout Belgium in the long run.

The Liège store is 1,500 sqm in size and occupies a warehouse that used to belong to the retailer’s online drugstore Newpharma. The wider aisles, higher shelves and other interior aspects make the site well equipped for high-volume purchases. The store is aimed at customers with a ‘Professional Plus’ membership card: night shops, grocery shops and resellers.

The store will sell a range of the 3,000 products that are most frequently sold to professionals in nearby Colruyt stores. A number of specific products – like vaping and tobacco products – will be kept in a locked room and sold to registered resellers of smoking products only.