Bijenkorf scales back international e-commerce

Due to rising costs, Dutch retailer Bijenkorf is discontinuing online activities in German- and French-speaking countries. From now on, the luxury department store will focus entirely on the Dutch-speaking market.

Cost savings

The Bijenkorf webshop will close in its German version (Germany and Austria) and its French version (France, Luxembourg, Monaco and Belgium): the luxury department store will continue online in Dutch only, it confirms in a press release. International operations will be completely phased out over the next few months. Rising costs are the reason for this decision. The Dutch webshop, which also serves the Northern part of Belgium, does show positive results and will therefore remain active.

The expansion into foreign-language markets dates back to 2019, when the company first opened a German-language webshop. A year later the French-language version followed. During the pandemic, e-commerce boomed, but now the sector is undergoing a downturn. Bijenkorf suffered a loss of millions last financial year and needs to cut costs.

“Everyone worked with infinite energy and professionalism to build the German, Austrian, French, Luxembourg, Walloon and Monegasque webshops”, CEO Giovanni Colauto, admitted before saying that “I regret that despite these efforts we now have to shift our focus.”