‘Sometimes it’s smart to accept a slightly lower margin’

For the 'Growth Spotlight' article series, we speak with partner Bart Telderman. He is the founder and owner of Best Deals Online. By closely monitoring the market and delivering from their own stock, they can consistently offer customers the best online deals. 

In 2017, Bart started Best Deals Online. At the time, it was to get rid of surplus stock from his physical car accessories stores. Bart: ‘We initially set up our webshop bestdealsonline.nl to integrate well with bol and to try out other selling platforms. However, bol as a selling partner is incomparable to Amazon or a reseller like Blokker. This is mainly due to its accessibility and ease of use: for example, as a partner, you can create your own promotions. Practically anyone can become successful selling via bol.’

Best Deals Online now generates a remarkable 92 percent of its revenue selling via bol. The remaining 8 percent comes from other platforms (Amazon, Blokker, Fnack.be) and their own webshop.

‘In 2017, Best Deals Online was bol's fastest-growing and most promising partner. From that point, we further expanded our collaboration and increasingly started using bol's services. That's where our biggest opportunities for improvement now lie, such as making more use of white and grey spots and Advertising via bol. Until recently, we didn't get around to it. I don't want to be negative about growth, but it was happening so fast that we had little time to invest and innovate. Thanks to additional staff, we will have more opportunities for this in the coming period.

‘We hardly carry any unique items. We are looking for them, precisely to be able to fill white spots in the long term. But even now, we sell about 80 percent of our product range via bol. Our strategy is to be the fastest and the cheapest. You simply want to win the buy box. Since we sell few unique items, this is a must for us. Fortunately, we succeed in about 95 to 97 percent of cases.’

‘To achieve a good price in the buy box, you need to have room in your margin. That's why we now buy in bulk, which allows us to offer a lower price. This works especially well with everyday items: inventory turnover greatly influences your profit. This also makes purchasing easier. By focusing on everyday items like packaging materials and cosmetics, we have customers on bol who have ordered from us up to 40 times. This helps us build their trust, even if we don't win the buy box sometimes. And we can produce significant volumes, making it easier to request a pallet from suppliers than just one box. Shipping also becomes cheaper. And that's good, because transport is perhaps the biggest cost. Buying in bulk and transport advantages mean your costs can decrease, your revenue increases, and customers will start to trust you. An upward spiral.’

‘When we want to discontinue items, for example, if there's too much competition. Sometimes we have about 25 competitors for an item and still win the buy box, perhaps thanks to volume. But sometimes we deliberately choose to secure the buy box at cost price. This has only a few times led to us having to write something off entirely. In principle, we never sell below cost price, but if an item is just taking up warehouse space, it's the best solution. Also, when we want to test an item, we keep the margin low. But generally, we make sure not to drop too far. If an item is offered too cheaply, the customer loses trust.’

‘Focus on a defined number of items. We currently sell many different items, but mainly to test: what suits us, what is popular? I'd prefer to go from 1,000 to 500 items. Because with an extremely broad product range, you won't earn more in the long run. You usually generate your revenue from your top 50, or even just your top 10. Therefore, it's advisable to focus primarily on these top items. Additionally, if you purchase multiple items from one supplier, you can also get good purchasing prices.’