Bol has been going the shit-way of Amazon for some time now: cranked up prices and they have a lot less in stock themselves. They just serve as a front for stores that sell their stuff online. Very often you can find the stuff cheaper on the original website, who also often enough offer free shipping if the product is pricey enough. The only benefit that Bol has is free next-day shipping for cheap stuff, but this is a race-to-the-bottom that I would rather not have seen happen. Who needs that anyway? The vast majority of things you really, really, don’t need the next day when you’re browsing some webstore at 20:30. Similar shit practices with Uber, Deliveroo, etc: take market share when cheap then crank up prices. In all of these, the employees are the victims and thank god that we still have proper night/weekend work regulations in Belgium.
The only thing I agree with is that Belgium isn’t exactly up to date when it comes to online presence of companies. It takes very little effort for a restaurant to have a website with the location/menu/contact info/fill-out-form to make a reservation. Yet, so many still don’t have that… Hell, I’d be happy with a Facebook account with a pic of the menu and reservations through Messenger but some don’t even have that.
This is perfectly normal. Most webshops in Belgium are absolute shit. And many companies don’t have an actual shop, just a website. At the start of the first lockdown I got into an argument with a bicycle shop owner who complained about being closed (fair enough) after I had said that if in 2020 you don’t have a webshop, your business probably deserves to die.
Yes it was perhaps not a nice thing to say, but there is really no excuse. I have a side business and it took me 2 evening to fabricate a decent webpage on [wordpress.com](https://wordpress.com) for an extremely low amount per year. It really isn’t difficult.
Yet so many people flat out refuse. I’ve been on 1 website to buy steel, where I had to send a mail to paper catalogue without prices, and then they would make me a quote. Meanwhile there were Dutch websites where every size of every type is available with a shopping basket system, online chat, and a whatsapp chat. Google anything in dutch ‘X… kopen’ and you will find tons of Dutch shops and almost no Belgian ones.
Any Belgian company who wants my business should have a webshop, or I will ignore them.
Of course, i needed clamps so i check local hardware stores. Then check bol, amazon.nl and amazon.de. Depending on which item amazon.de is less than half the price of the local store.
This is not a wage issue nore a store issue. But a governmental issue.
I recall a recent post that went along the lines of “why would we need to be competitive with our neighbours? Let them take us as example of better workers rights!”
And while I agree with the sentiment, this is the downside of that train of thought. Our rules are simply too strict compared to the dutch and german to really thrive. So we do not compete, simply export the business as much as we possibly can.
And frankly the fact that most shop owners and to some extent belgians in general aren’t exactly progressive / forward thinking adds to it as well. In belgium we have “click and collect”; “collect and go”; … and even those are slow to catch on.
I live in ghent, the closest collect & go point is almost 5 km by bike. What’s the fucking point? Meanwhile AH will deliver to my door and the service fee is cheaper than collect & go. In NL, they deliver throughout the entire country. Probably because they grasp spatial planning allows more efficient distribution of goods, but still.
Everyone – literally the entire world – will increasingly buy stuff online. We can either move with the times and remain competitive; or let the dutch take care of it.
Er is niet 1 overkoepelende Belgische webshop. Colruyt wilde het niet doen. Winkels hebben amper een webshop of die trekt op niks.
Een vriend is zelfstandige geworden, redelijk niche producten en heeft zijn 3de winkel geopend en heeft opnieuw magazijniers nodig vanwege de webshop. Die webshop genereert veruit de grootste opbrengst.
Een pet peeve: wanneer ga je winkelen? In het weekend want door de week moet je werken. Dat is voor bijna iedereen zo, dus je verspilt zoveel tijd in het weekend vanwege de drukte. Geen zin in want is enige 2 dagen dat je wat kunt rusten dus ga je de webshop op. Oops! Bedrijf heeft het niet, maar buitenlandse concurrent heeft én een webshop én levert aan huis. Dan is de keuze snel gemaakt.
Winkels moeten echt leren begrijpen dat een webshop ondertussen standaard is geworden. Niet enkel om te kopen, maar ook om te “browsen”. Blijven vasthouden aan “kom maar langs” (ntrlk met uitzondering van bv een nieuwe keuken, of schoenen/kleding van onbekende merken,…) werkt niet meer.
6 comments
Bol has been going the shit-way of Amazon for some time now: cranked up prices and they have a lot less in stock themselves. They just serve as a front for stores that sell their stuff online. Very often you can find the stuff cheaper on the original website, who also often enough offer free shipping if the product is pricey enough. The only benefit that Bol has is free next-day shipping for cheap stuff, but this is a race-to-the-bottom that I would rather not have seen happen. Who needs that anyway? The vast majority of things you really, really, don’t need the next day when you’re browsing some webstore at 20:30. Similar shit practices with Uber, Deliveroo, etc: take market share when cheap then crank up prices. In all of these, the employees are the victims and thank god that we still have proper night/weekend work regulations in Belgium.
The only thing I agree with is that Belgium isn’t exactly up to date when it comes to online presence of companies. It takes very little effort for a restaurant to have a website with the location/menu/contact info/fill-out-form to make a reservation. Yet, so many still don’t have that… Hell, I’d be happy with a Facebook account with a pic of the menu and reservations through Messenger but some don’t even have that.
This is perfectly normal. Most webshops in Belgium are absolute shit. And many companies don’t have an actual shop, just a website. At the start of the first lockdown I got into an argument with a bicycle shop owner who complained about being closed (fair enough) after I had said that if in 2020 you don’t have a webshop, your business probably deserves to die.
Yes it was perhaps not a nice thing to say, but there is really no excuse. I have a side business and it took me 2 evening to fabricate a decent webpage on [wordpress.com](https://wordpress.com) for an extremely low amount per year. It really isn’t difficult.
Yet so many people flat out refuse. I’ve been on 1 website to buy steel, where I had to send a mail to paper catalogue without prices, and then they would make me a quote. Meanwhile there were Dutch websites where every size of every type is available with a shopping basket system, online chat, and a whatsapp chat. Google anything in dutch ‘X… kopen’ and you will find tons of Dutch shops and almost no Belgian ones.
Any Belgian company who wants my business should have a webshop, or I will ignore them.
Of course, i needed clamps so i check local hardware stores. Then check bol, amazon.nl and amazon.de. Depending on which item amazon.de is less than half the price of the local store.
This is not a wage issue nore a store issue. But a governmental issue.
I recall a recent post that went along the lines of “why would we need to be competitive with our neighbours? Let them take us as example of better workers rights!”
And while I agree with the sentiment, this is the downside of that train of thought. Our rules are simply too strict compared to the dutch and german to really thrive. So we do not compete, simply export the business as much as we possibly can.
And frankly the fact that most shop owners and to some extent belgians in general aren’t exactly progressive / forward thinking adds to it as well. In belgium we have “click and collect”; “collect and go”; … and even those are slow to catch on.
I live in ghent, the closest collect & go point is almost 5 km by bike. What’s the fucking point? Meanwhile AH will deliver to my door and the service fee is cheaper than collect & go. In NL, they deliver throughout the entire country. Probably because they grasp spatial planning allows more efficient distribution of goods, but still.
Everyone – literally the entire world – will increasingly buy stuff online. We can either move with the times and remain competitive; or let the dutch take care of it.
Er is niet 1 overkoepelende Belgische webshop. Colruyt wilde het niet doen. Winkels hebben amper een webshop of die trekt op niks.
Een vriend is zelfstandige geworden, redelijk niche producten en heeft zijn 3de winkel geopend en heeft opnieuw magazijniers nodig vanwege de webshop. Die webshop genereert veruit de grootste opbrengst.
Een pet peeve: wanneer ga je winkelen? In het weekend want door de week moet je werken. Dat is voor bijna iedereen zo, dus je verspilt zoveel tijd in het weekend vanwege de drukte. Geen zin in want is enige 2 dagen dat je wat kunt rusten dus ga je de webshop op. Oops! Bedrijf heeft het niet, maar buitenlandse concurrent heeft én een webshop én levert aan huis. Dan is de keuze snel gemaakt.
Winkels moeten echt leren begrijpen dat een webshop ondertussen standaard is geworden. Niet enkel om te kopen, maar ook om te “browsen”. Blijven vasthouden aan “kom maar langs” (ntrlk met uitzondering van bv een nieuwe keuken, of schoenen/kleding van onbekende merken,…) werkt niet meer.
[typwatjenodighebtenplaker.nl](https://typwatjenodighebtenplaker.nl) achter en gegarandeerd heb je geen 404