Bol.com lays off 10% of staff

Dutch ecommerce giant Bol.com is cutting approximately 10 percent of its staff. This comes down to 300 jobs. The company needs to save a total of 225 million euros over the next three years. The growth of the online store has come to a halt.

Last year, the company made 5.5 billion euros in online sales. This was 27 percent more than a year before. It also achieved an EBITDA of 166 million euros. However, during the first half of 2022 the company’s numbers were in the red. It made 1.2 billion euros in revenue in Q3, which was an increase of 5.6 percent.

Growth has come to a halt

Earlier this year, the online marketplace also cancelled its plans to go public. This was due to disappointing numbers and economic uncertainty. The company’s growth has come to a halt, said CEO Margaret Versteden.

Contracts of 100 employees will not be renewed.

To counter its declining profit, the marketplace has to cut costs. Contracts of 100 employees will not be renewed. Another 200 unfilled vacancies will now also be deleted.

Market conditions sector

“The entire sector has to deal with dynamic market conditions, causing consumers to spend less”, the company said in a response to Dutch newspaper FD. It is not the first ecommerce company to cut back on its workforce. Just last month, Sendcloud also had to lay off about 10 percent of its staff in Europe. Earlier this year, Shopify and Klarna did the same.

Additional plans to cut costs

The job cuts account for approximately 15 percent of the total amount that Bol.com has to save. It also wants to save 10 percent on its cloud services. Other business departments will also need to make sacrifices.

Some branches of Bol.com are not included in the cuts.

The staff that will continue working at the marketplace is missing out on a bonus this year, which is based on turnover, profit and customer satisfaction. Yet, the departments responsible for selling advertising space on the website and app and the company’s logistics branch are not included in the cuts. According to Versteden, these departments are ‘strategically important’.