Win the holiday season by getting your basics right

A good foundation starts with a good quality score. Your score is measured over 22 weeks. That works both ways: 1 weaker week will not immediately pull your score down, but 1 good week will not boost it instantly either. That does not mean it is too late now. Partners receive the most strikes on average around week 48. So everything you improve from now on counts towards the weeks that matter most.

A high score offers concrete benefits:

• Select deals always-on
• Lower risk of strikes
• Growth reward
• Higher chance of winning the buy box

Your score is based on 5 service standards (Items on time, Cancellations, Track & Trace, Customer questions, and Returns). In your seller account, you can see how you are performing for each standard, so you can easily spot where the biggest improvements can be made.

Customers search a lot via bol, but cannot find everything. That presents opportunities for you. We have 3 places where you can find them:

1. Sales opportunities
   Sales opportunities are categories where many customers are searching, but cannot find the right items. Add items to these categories and you can benefit from a 25% variable commission discount until the end of the year. All categories and conditions can be found on the Partnerplatform.

2. White spots
   Items (EANs) that customers search for via bol, but are not yet being sold, are white spots. Do you see items listed that you have in stock but do not offer yet? You can add these to increase your sales opportunities. In your seller account, you will find all white spots and we offer smart suggestions for your product range based on brands and the category you sell in.

3. Items offline due to content
   In your seller account, you can see which items are offline because content is missing. You can see this per item under the sales status. As soon as you complete the missing information, they become available for sale again. This is often the quickest win, as the product range is already set up.

In mid-September, your personal sales forecast for the festive season will be ready. In it, you will see an estimate of the most relevant product categories in which you are active. We update the forecast every week, so it gets increasingly precise as the festive season approaches. It pays to check back more than once.

You can use the forecast for 3 types of decisions:

• what extra stock to buy
• which product range to put on promotion
• where your advertising budget delivers the highest return

You can find your forecast in your email and via the banner on the homepage of your seller account.

Good content increases your findability, visibility, and conversion rate. It also reduces the number of returns and customer questions. This is most worthwhile for your bestsellers and promotional items. Check this against the 5 key building blocks for good content.

The festive season revolves around promotions, but your price outside of promotions determines what you can do within them. The earlier you offer a discount, the less margin you will have left later. Different guidelines apply regarding lead time, your promotional price, and your price star rating. You can find these in the promotional price guidelines. You can also choose to have your prices adjust automatically to the market using repricer tools provided by various ecosystem partners.

Of course, we know that customers are even more sensitive to promotions around the festive season. That is why it is important to create a promotional plan in advance.