Dutch e-commerce scaleup Coolblue, on Wednesday, announced its financial results for 2020. Founded by Pieter Zwart, Paul de Jong, and Bart Kuijpers in 1999, Coolblue has 14 physical stores in the Netherlands and Germany. The online retailer sells consumer products in 10 categories, from Image & Sound, Telephony, Computer & Tablets, to Household & Living. Coolblue has its own delivery and installation service as well. In 2019, Coolblue achieved a turnover of €1.5B. But, in 2020, the company performed even better, despite the pandemic.
Here are 7 key takeaways from Coolblue’s 2020 financial results:
A turnover of 2 billion euros
The Rotterdam-based company achieved a whopping turnover of €2B (+ 34 per cent) and an operating result (EBITDA) of €114M, which is €66M more than the year before.
Home Workshops was a hit
In 2020 many employers were seeking home workplace solutions. So when the company introduced Home Work Shops, it was met with huge demand. According to the company, with this service, employers in Belgium and the Netherlands have already provided more than 48,000 employees with a comfortable home workplace.
Expansion of shops and bicycle network
According to the company, it expanded its own infrastructure considerably last year. Coolblue opened stores in Leiden, Hasselt and its flagship store in Brussels. It also rapidly expanded its bicycle network. It claims that orders are now delivered to customers in more than 20 cities by bicycle, in a paper shipping bag.
Clean Energy
In 2020, Coolblue started with the sale and installation of charging stations. The retailer had plans to start in the vicinity of Rotterdam, Utrecht and Tilburg, and expand to the rest of the Netherlands, later in the year.
Earlier this year, in January, the company started selling and supplying Coolblue Energy – it now supplies electricity and gas. Notably, tor this, the retailer bought the energy company ServiceHouse.
Move to Germany
Last year, the company started its operations in the German market. In fact, Coolblue developed its own delivery network, installation service, bicycle network, and shops in the Düsseldorf area.
As a result, the company also hired 40 German-speaking couriers to do the last kilometers of the delivery process. Currently, the online retailer has now considerably expanded its own delivery network, installation service and bicycle network. A physical store will follow soon, it claims.
Plans for 2021
According to Pieter Zwart, the co-founder of Coolblue, it is going to open new shops, invest in the warehouse of the future and continue building with charging stations, solar panels and Coolblue Energy. It also wants to open even more Home Work shops and of course make as many customers as possible happy.
The happiness quotient
According to the company, making customers happy is in its DNA. “Making customers smile. Some smiles come easily, some take a little extra, but at Coolblue it’s all in the details. We charge no shipping costs for our orders. We send our customers a text message as soon as their order has been packed and shipped. We answer all questions on Social Media within 30 minutes,” mentions the company in its LinkedIn page.
According to the retailer, it achieved all these milestones in 2020 by making a lot of customers happy. It claims to have achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 68 – an index to measure customer experience and predict business growth.
