General
The current crisis is forcing us, retailers, to take a break and look in the mirror: are we still relevant, do we still see opportunities, do we still want to invest, do we still feel the drive to get back to work?
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Ahold Delhaize's non-food webshop bol.com is due to open its French version in June, starting its offensive in Brussels and Wallonia. On its annual general meeting, the Dutch retail group also approved a prolonged Belgian presence in its supervisory board.
The arrival of Amazon in the Benelux is causing a landslide. Experts take a gloomy view: an immeasurable product range, very low prices and the cheap Prime membership are the ingredients of a deadly efficient ecosystem. What can local players do against that?
Food
Ahold Delhaize had already released its financial results a fortnight ago, but now the Dutch retail group has also published its full annual report. We shed some light on a few remarkable figures.
Ahold Delhaize ended 2019 on a high: sales and profit increased slightly more than expected, and online sales grew by more than 30 %. Dutch Albert Heijn and Belgian Delhaize both gained market share, American growth came mostly from online.
Bol.com is a superpower in the Benelux e-commerce sector, but its exact figures have long been a well-kept secret. In order to support its own share price, owner Ahold Delhaize has been considering more openness about the figures in recent months, but for fear of Amazon's expansion to the Netherlands, this plan has been abandoned.
Fashion
As of today, bol.com also sells clothing. Among its fashion partners are big names like About You, Jack & Jones, Miss Etam and Zeeman.
Retailers in the Benelux will face declining consumer confidence and increasing competition in the coming years, credit rating agency Moody’s says in a new report. Traditional retail chains are forced to make high investments due to the growth of online retail, which has a negative impact on profits and creditworthiness.
Amazon is always looking for growth, as the launch of a Dutch web shop in 2020 proves. But is it too late by now? And how can others to compete? Retail influencer Natalie Berg explains how at RetailDetail’s Omnichannel & E-commerce Congress 2020.
What will 2020 bring for the retail sector? Growing tensions between retailers and their suppliers, fears EuroCommerce director-general Christian Verschueren. He hopes that the new European Commission will put a strong stop to increasing protectionism.
The number of online purchases and the total online turnover went up for the fifth consecutive year in Belgium: the milestone of 11 billion euros is near.
Cosmetics
Dutch drugstore chain Etos is to start selling through webshop bol.com. With this move, both Ahold Delhaize subsidiaries are looking to strengthen their synergies.
From the beginning of next year, Dutch web shop bol.com intends to expand into fashion, anticipating the arrival of Amazon.
German Zalando and Dutch bol.com are building on their sustainability: while the former says its operations are now completely climate neutral, the latter has opened a separate shop including only sustainable products, because "sustainability is a commercial success".
Lots of consumers use marketplaces like bol.com and Amazon not just to buy products, but also as a source of information: they look for details about products, which they then buy from a physical store.
Next summer, Dutch e-tailer bol.com will expand to Wallonia with a French-language version of its app. The company is looking for local companies to sell on its platform.
