Dutch marketplace Bol is introducing ‘a completely new ecosystem category’: third-party fulfillment, or 3PL for short. The market leader is looking for logistics companies that can help partner sellers with warehouse space and processing orders. Currently, sellers can only outsource fulfillment to Bol itself, but soon they will also be able to outsource to other fulfillment companies within the network.
Bol has been providing partner sellers with logistics services for more than ten years. Under the banner ‘Logistics via Bol’, they can send products to the platform’s warehouses and have them shipped from there. Bol is now going to link external fulfillment companies to its ecosystem.
3PL partnerships
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The 3PL plans were not announced in a press release, but are evident from a job vacancy: Bol is looking for an Ecosystem Partnership Manager Logistics. The primary task: “launching 3PL partnerships as an additional shipping option for sales partners.” The new employee will be responsible for building strategic partnerships with third-party fulfillment parties. These parties must become more efficient, so that Bol customers will receive their orders much faster.
‘The new employee will search for the best 3PL players in the market’
From the job posting: “You will search for the best 3PL players in the market. Who delivers the most added value for our partners, our customers, and for us?”. The manager needs to ‘drive adoption’ among Dutch, Belgian and international sales partners within and outside of Europe. Bol currently offers third-party logistics to around 1,000 international partners in collaboration with QLS. Soon, all 45,000 sales partners will be able to use external fulfillment partners within the ecosystem.
Delivery options for Select
Fast(er) delivery is an important priority for Bol, according to the vacancy. The sooner orders are delivered, the more satisfied customers will be with Bol and the sales partner in question. The benefits for partners using the 3PL network will probably be similar to the current benefits of using Logistics via Bol.
It is likely that partner sellers using the fulfillment network will take advantage of benefits
This means that their customers get all delivery options that come along with the Select-program (free delivery and choosing a time slot for the delivery for free). This also increases the likelihood of making a sale for partner sellers.
New warehouse in the Netherlands
Bol is expected to start the construction of a new warehouse in Lelystad, the Netherlands, this year. In 2022, it already purchased a plot of land. Since then, Bol has grown less rapidly than it had anticipated. The warehouse is going to be developed in phases. Building a network of external fulfillment partners will further reduce the need for warehouse space for Bol.
Last mile logistics
In the meanwhile, Bol is also developing its own logistics services for the last mile, between the warehouse and the customer. Its subsidiary Ampère collects parcels from partner sellers who use Sending via Bol (Verzenden via bol). In addidition, Ampère has set up a drop-off network where smaller sales partners can deliver parcels.
Fulfillment companies, retailers and online stores with warehouse space serve as drop-off points for this purpose. Ampère takes the collected parcels to logistics centers of couriers, like PostNL, or to its own logistics centers. The amount of centers is increasing. Ampère itself is also delivering goods to customers in selected cities in the Netherlands.
