New look for Dutch online store Bol.com

The Dutch online store Bol.com has made some big changes to its design, in order to be ready “for the future”. The redesign is not something that came out of nowhere, as the ecommerce site was already renovating its site design. Last year it started with the first few tests and two months ago the site navigation changed completely. Bol.com will also release its own mobile apps later this year.

Emerce first reported this news and spoke to Michel Schaeffer, marketing director of Bol.com, about the redesign. “We are working on a transition from ‘online store’ to a ‘store for everyone of us’ with many product categories”, he says. “But every product category needs another approach, because there’s another way of purchasing. When buying a book online, you browse and use the site differently compared to buying a closet or childs clothes. The latter are more complex purchases, because you need more information before you decide to purchase. You want more visual stimuli”, he explains. “So for our baby and toddler clothing product pages, this means customers can zoom in on pictures. And the pages that contains a list of products also will be more visual than before. We’re going from text-driven to image-driven.”

1 in 5 products sold by external vendors
In an effort to put external vendors more in the spotlights, Bol.com has changed the appearance of the site’s buying area. Understandable, as 1 in 5 articles sold on Bol.com are originally coming from its partner sellers. “To get a clearer picture of the situation: last May we had about 5,000 partner stores, this month there are about 7,000 of them”, Schaeffer tells the Dutch ecommerce blog. “This new navigation gives us a slightly better conversion, but it’s especially meant to give us some more space for further growth.”

Mobile app Bol.com
Later this year Bol.com expects to publish its first own mobile apps. The company, owned by Dutch international retailer Ahold, has published an API for years now, but never released its own mobile app.

The old product page of Bol.com:

The new product page of Bol.com: