Albert Heijn pick-up points for bol.com products prove successful

Utrecht - Bol.com's three new specialist stores, opened in 2012 and offering everything for baby, kitchen & dining, and health & beauty, have performed ahead of expectations from day one, contributing to another year of robust growth for the internet retailer. The introduction of free delivery and pick-up points for bol.com orders at 59 Albert Heijn stores also chipped in, as did the fact that customer numbers doubled in Belgium. These developments contribute to the continuation of the fast growth bol.com has shown in recent years.

In February 2012, bol.com announced it would be taken over by Ahold and become part of the strong, international retailing group. The takeover gave bol.com additional financial strength to grow and has since produced notable benefits for customers - one of these being that they can now pick up their bol.com products at 59 Albert Heijn stores. Daniel Ropers, Managing Director at bol.com, comments: "This clearly meets a need: we note that more than 5% of all orders are already collected where this service is available, with customers often combining the visit with their daily shop. That's actually twice as many as we expected." Albert Heijn's own pick-up points in Heemstede, Tilburg and Naarden now also enable bol.com customers to collect their orders, and many more Albert Heijn stores will host bol.com pick-up points later this year.

Growth in Belgium

In addition to the Netherlands, bol.com also recorded growth in Belgium. The number of deliveries to Belgian addresses has jumped while customer numbers have doubled. "E-commerce is making huge strides in Belgium," Ropers explains, "and we feel privileged to be allowed to meet the demands of many Belgians." In Belgium, too, bol.com has opened its first pick-up point in an Albert Heijn store. Bol.com recently picked up two awards reflecting consumer satisfaction in Belgium: one for best multimedia store, and the other a "webstore of the year" award. "These awards are a great impetus for us to keep investing in this second home market, for example by hiring more Belgian experts to help us tailor our offering to the needs of our customers in Belgium."

Bol.com expects to generate more growth in both the Netherlands and Belgium this year, and has already announced plans for a number of new specialist stores, scheduled to open in 2013.

2,500 other sellers selling through bol.com

As well as from its own specialist stores and the introduction of free delivery, growth also came from bol.com opening up its website to competitors. To date, some 2,500 large and small stores sell their products through bol.com. "This store format doesn't just enable us to give customers a wider choice in products - it enhances our availability and price offering," says Ropers. The total number of products available via bol.com increased by around 10% to some 6 million in 2012.

Nearly one in three customers shops by phone or tablet

Meanwhile, 13.5% of all bol.com visits are made by smartphone, over double the percentage in 2011. To offer optimum shopping convenience to these customers, bol.com opened a new mobile store in September. Customers using their tablets to shop also doubled in number, to 15.1%. This shift to mobile devices should continue, thanks to the increase in apps as well as bol.com's robust mobile website. Bol.com expects over 40% of all bol.com customers to shop via their smartphones or tablets by the end of 2013.


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