Partner sales on Bol continue growing

Dutch online marketplace Bol is not growing as fast as it did last year. Its own sales have stagnated, but sales by partner sellers on the platform continue to grow significantly. Even with fewer partner sellers.

Bol’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize, has not yet released any specific figures regarding Bol this year. Dutch consumers are under financial pressure, as the parent company has now reported for three consecutive quarters: as a result, customers are choosing cheaper products from Bol’s product range more frequently.

Issues with logistics partner

In the first two quarters, Ahold Delhaize also pointed to the strong year-over-year comparison, which weighed on Bol’s performance. In its latest quarterly report, the parent company also cited problems with a logistics partner. This refers to the cyberattack on Ceva Logistics, which disrupted deliveries from a distribution center in Waalwijk in August.

Online revenue streams

Ahold Delhaize does not disclose specific figures for Bol. However, the latest quarterly report does provide insight into the trend in online revenue streams. Third-party online sales from July through September totaled 787 million euros, up 7.9 percent from the third quarter of last year.

Partner sales are growing much faster than Bol’s own sales

As a result, online partner sales exceeded the 773 million euros in ‘other online sales’. This category includes, among other things, Bol’s own online sales and commissions on partner sales, as well as online sales by Etos and Gall & Gall. Growth in this category stalled at 0.7 percent:

Ahold Delhaize reports revenue from online grocery sales (primarily from Albert Heijn) separately. These are listed under the heading “grocery online sales.”

Turning point

Throughout this entire year, online partner sales have been growing faster than the company’s own online sales, as shown in the table: in the first nine months, online revenue from partners (primarily Bol) grew by 7.6 percent, while the company’s own online sales—primarily from Bol, Etos, and Gall & Gall—grew by 1.3 percent.

This has not always been the case. The turnaround began midway through last year: online sales from partners have now been growing faster than other online sales for five consecutive quarters. Since the beginning of this year, they have also been higher in absolute terms.

Fewer partner sellers

Meanwhile, the amount of Bol’s sales partners continues to decline. At its peak, the platform reported having approximately 52,000 partners. That was in mid-2023. Bol currently reports having 43,095 partners (as of June 30, 2026).

Bol has one-sixth fewer partner sellers than it did three years ago

That represents a 17 percent decrease, or one-sixth. It is no longer limited to companies from the Benelux region, as Bol has opened its doors to international partners and is actively recruiting them.

Growth stalled

Bol has been the online market leader in the Netherlands and Belgium for years. According to ECDB, the company expanded its lead over Amazon in its home market last year. Growth has since slowed significantly. Ahold Delhaize’s European online consumer sales outside of its supermarket operations—which are largely driven by Bol—grew by 4.4 percent in the first nine months of this year. In the same period last year, that figure was 8.7 percent. This means the growth rate has nearly halved.