AO.com will launch in the Netherlands

AO.com, the largest online kitchen appliance specialist in the United Kingdom, has announced it has plans to launch a dedicated ecommerce website in the Netherlands. The online retailer expects to commence trading in the Netherlands in the spring of next year.

AO shared this news during the presentation of its unaudited financial results [pdf] for the six months ended 30 September.CEO John Roberts is happy with the progress his company made in its home country the United Kingdom, but is also content with the results in Germany, AO’s first international market.

‘Ready to move into the Netherlands’
“There we are continuing to build scale and remain confident that our business model and customer proposition are working as well on the European mainland as they have in the UK”, he says. “Our confidence means that we are now ready to move into the Netherlands, helping to leverage our German asset, and we continue to review other adjacent markets.”

He also adds that the company has taken some important learnings from the launch in Germany, which only helps them plan for further expansion in Europe. As said, AO expects to bring its ecommerce business to the Dutch consumers in the spring of 2016.

For AO, the Netherlands represents a significant opportunity with a major domestic appliances market of about 1.4 billion euros annually, with small domestic appliances and audio visual products being worth 0.8 billion euros and 1 billion euros respectively. “We anticipate being based in Utrecht which will facilitate a small call centre and outbase, but stockholding and warehouse management, together with the ecommerce function, will be run from our regional office in the German place Bergheim, once established”, the company explains.

Also read: “British AO.com expanding to more European countries“, where we predicted AO would launch in the Netherlands.