General introduction about Coolblue
Mentioning to the story of Coolblue in Netherland, people are all surprised at its flourish in terms of the e-commerce industry. At the beginning, it started as an online shop, then turned into one of the largest e-commerce companies in Netherland and even expanded into Belgium. In 2017, Coolblue achieved total revenue of 1.2 billion euro (increase 38% compared to the year before). With various forward steps, thanks to wise strategy pursuing Omnichannel, they have witnessed the innovation in operating process, become one of the major Omnichannel Retailers from Netherland.
Their opinion about Omnichannel
CEO of Coolblue, Pieter Zwart once claimed: “Retailers need to change their approach drastically and having only a physical store won’t help them to do it”. He said that brick-and-mortar stores should stop muddling along. Besides, with the main strategy of putting customer satisfaction on top of priority, Pieter Zwart said: “We realize that the online sales increase rapidly in the same area as our brick-and-mortar stores. In every city where we open a store, we see online sales increase immediately. There is a causal connection”
Thus, to run business and communicate with customers, Coolblue decided to choose Omnichannel approach as the gold key obtaining success.
Coolblue Omnichannel Footprint on website
And the reality proved they’re right! In 2017, Coolblue’s sales surged to almost €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion). They witness the increase in net profit from €8.9 million to €9.1 million. Moreover, Net Promoter Score (NPC – an index ranging from -100 to 100 measuring the willingness of customers to recommend company’s products and service to other) of Coolblue has risen to 66. “It’s an unprecedented high score for a retail company and I am incredibly proud of this. Coolblue is well known for its customer service, both in the pre- and after-sale stage”, CEO of Coolblue says.
With this speed of growth, it’s fair to consider Coolblue a successful Omnichannel Retailer.
What have they done to reach this achievement in running Omnichannel?
From time to time, the representative of Coolblue emphasizes the importance of customer-centric in shopping journey. In other words, Coolblue is the merchant who mainly focuses on client experience. They take a great care of how to meet fully shopper’s demand and bring in the most convenient feeling when shoppers shop.
To turn this target into actions, in recent years, Coolblue has done various further steps.
Coolblue XXL stores
In 2017, it opened Coolblue XXL stores in Hague and Amsterdam. These major stores let customers see, feel and try over 1,250 products with 2,600 square meters. It acts as a pick-up and return point of parcels.
Up to now, Coolblue has operated over 300 individual webshops and 8 physical stores under the Coolblue brand.
06 Coolblue Physical Stores in Netherlands
Merged warehouse
Besides the issue of opening new stores. Coolblue also started to merge warehouses and expand its total space from 61.000 to 94.000 m2 to serve the increase in product demand.
Release Coolblue app
In August 2017, Coolblue released first mobile app. The app for IOS was downloaded 20.000 times on the first day and reach number one spot in the app store. After that, the Belgium version of the app was also launched and then was Android version. “ One of the drivers behind this growth is a predicted increase in app revenue”, CEO of Coolblue claimed.
How Magestore Omnichannel Solution can support Retailers like Coolblue
And if you ever want an Omnichannel system running smoothly like the one of Coolblue, Magestore is here to serve you best.
Combine smoothly various of stores
The problems of having multiple stores can be eliminated with Omnichannel Solution from Magestore. The manager will no longer be overwhelmed in the ocean of numeric data. Operating performance of each store can be created at the end of working day. Moreover, other kinds of data are always under control regardless the number of stores you have. Smart report system with various kinds such as sales report, staffs report, location reports will demonstrate scientifically performance to help manager manage numerous stores effectively.
Manage various multiple selling channels (through app, website, physical stores)
Omnichannel system from Magestore can connect different selling channels efficiently and smoothly. Despite the channel clients choose to purchase, all process will run united. Every adjusts on each channel will be updated real-time to assure bring in a real-time update for shoppers. Seamless experience and customer-centric are the core value Omnichannel can create.
Transparency and connected warehouses.
The issue of inventory management now is solved more easily than you expected before. The numbers of products in-stock and out-stock are always in hand helping store owners take full potential transactions and eliminate the risk of remaining abundant products and items.
Furthermore, the function of connecting various warehouses allows your staffs transfer items between stores to serve customer’s demand in an urgent situation. Serve them more and serve them quicker. No waiting and no complaining.
Last but not least, those functions above are not everything Magestore can bring to you with Omnichannel Solution. In fact, we can go further with others features which optimize more effectively selling process of your store such as Loyalty Program, POS, Barcode Management, Dropship, Order Fulfillment, Store Pickup or even Purchase Management.
For more details, please visit us by accessing to the link: www.magestore.com
Conclusion
As people can see, the battle between online and offline store doesn’t exist anymore. Literally, their relationship doesn’t base on elimination but support each other. And Omnichannel is the right and wise solution makes it happen. Sooner or later, Omnichannel will be the main strategy that every merchant desires to adopt. Thus, let’s stay competitive in the market race and get prepared with this most powerful weapon.
