Bol.com becoming advertising platform as well as sales platform

Online retailer bol.com continues to evolve in the direction of a platform model. More and more sales partners advertise on the website.

More partners

At the end of the second quarter, bol.com had approximately 47,000 sales partners in Belgium and the Netherlands. This is more than twice as many as a year ago. The strong increase at the beginning of the year, which was caused by the temporary closure of the physical stores, has now subsided.

In the Netherlands, the revenue share of sales partners increased by 3.82% in one year’s time. These local entrepreneurs now represent just over 61% of total revenue. The importance of bol.com as a pure seller is therefore continuing to decline.

The reverse is true in Belgium. There, the share of revenue generated by partners is 3.3% lower than in the second quarter of last year. Nevertheless, at 63.5%, this share is still above the level in the Netherlands. The high basis of comparison may play a role in the decrease. In April last year, the revenue share of partners in Belgium reached an absolute peak of 74.5%.

Advertising

Bol.com also offers advertising services on its platform, which allow partners to put products in the spotlight. Almost one in four partners is now making use of these services. The number of in-house advertisers has increased by about 10% in the last six months.

Both in Belgium and in the Netherlands, the number of active customers of the web shop continues to grow. In one year’s time, the number of active customers grew to 9.9 million in the Netherlands and almost 2.9 million in Belgium. That is about 1.6 million more than in June last year.