Bol.com’s revenue from external vendors grows 55%

Bol.com, the biggest online retailer from the Netherlands, is rapidly transforming into an online marketplace that accommodates other vendors. The company’s own revenue is still higher than those of its partners on its platform, but the third party seller’s revenue is however increasing faster.

Holding company Ahold released its fourth quarter and full year 2018 results this week and thus we know more about how Bol.com performed. On LinkedIn, former employee Emile Valkestijn shared an interesting graph, showing the growth of Bol.com’s revenue of the years, divided into its own net consumer sales and those of the retailers selling through its platform.

‘Revenue from partners will surpass 1 billion mark in 2019’

If things go according to plan, the third-party net consumers sales will surpass the 1 billion mark in 2019 for the first time. And their revenue will account for almost 40 percent of Bol.com’s total revenue.

Last year, Bol.com achieved net consumer sales worth 2.1 billion euros. That’s an increase of 31 percent compared to the situation one year before. During the same time, its own revenue increased with 22 percent to 1.42 billion euros.

That’s still more revenue than the amount of money generated by third-party vendors, because that was worth 678 million euros last year. However, this revenue increased with a significant 55 percent last year.

A third of Bol.com’s revenue comes from external retailers

Last year, the revenue of external vendors accounted for almost a third 32 percent) of the company’s total net consumer sales. For comparison: in the two years prior, that share was just 27 percent.