The dutch brand V&D can look back on a long history. Nowadays it stands for a purely-online department store which sells a wide range of products. As one of our marketplace partners, V&D is part of the ECD Lunch BeNeLux. We talked to Alexander van Slooten, Managing Director at V&D, about the reasons for participating in the ECD Lunch, the requirements for brands to sell on V&D and the cooperation with Tradebyte.

Alexander van Slooten

Tradebyte: V&D will be part of the ECD Lunch BeNeLux on March 26th and we are very happy about it. Can you tell us why you decided to participate?

Alexander: V&D only launched in September 2018, so we are still in the middle of adding a lot of new partners. Tradebyte has many well-known customers and we are very happy to get in contact with them, exchange information and see if we can come together. The ECD Lunch BeNeLux is the perfect event for us.

Since you started your new platform, you received a lot of positive feedback. What is your main focus regarding the product range and which target group are you addressing?

V&D is one of the most well-known brands in the Netherlands because it used to be a chain of 62 brick and mortar department stores and has a long tradition. In 2015 it went bankrupt, and we bought the brand rights to start the marketplace VD.nl which is a purely-online department store. V&D always focused on the mid-range with mid-priced brands for the average Dutchman. With VD.nl, our focus is on selling fashion to a somewhat older target group, meaning 40 plus. The average customer of VD.nl is female and 46 years old. Historically V&D used to sell a lot of fashion, but also other things such as suitcases, leather goods, beauty products, home interior – in short: a very broad range. And that’s basically what we are doing right now: in addition to all those products, we are selling e.g. sporting equipment and VD.nl is now bigger than ever before. The reason is that, unlike in a physical department store, space is not limited online.

What requirements must brands meet to sell on VD.nl?

As already mentioned, we are focusing on the average dutch customer and for us it is important that brands, which sell on VD.nl are a good match for us. We don’t want to sell as many products as we can, but we want to be relevant. We always ask ourselves the question: Does this brand fit with what or who we want to be? Sometimes it doesn’t. But if it is does, we contact and visit the brand. The main requirement for potential partners is on the service level: ship directly to customers, adhere to delivery times and have a solid return process.

What are your reasons for using Tradebyte as an integrator?

One of the decisive factors for a marketplace’s success is seamless integration between partners’ systems and your own. One must be able to rely on the technical aspect of business Tradebyte provides a very solid and robust system and helps us be successful as a marketplace. We, our customers and our partners can rely on it. And another reason for using Tradebyte as an integrator is, that there are a lot of well-known brands connected to you, which might be very interesting to VD.nl. We are a very happy partner of Tradebyte.

On April 11th at 10:00 am there will be a sales webinar together with Tradebyte. On which subjects will you focus in this webinar?

In the first part of the webinar we will give a short presentation of our marketplace, especially for new partners. The participants of the webinar can ask us anything about VD.nl. In the second part we will inform about the requirements for partners who are considering on selling at VD.nl. The webinar is for existing Tradebyte partners, who are interested in VD.nl. We want to strengthen the awareness of our marketplace.

 

Thank you very much for this interview. We are looking forward to the sales webinar in April.

Please contact your Account Manager for more information about V&D and the webinar.