Part 3: partner with Bol.com or partner with Amazon?
How is the partner contact with Bol and Amazon?
If you have a problem with the Bol.com seller platform, there will be someone at your disposal that you can reach within an hour. Due to the increasing number of ecommercers, the waiting time on the phone has become longer, sometimes up to 20 minutes during the holidays, but there is someone there for you and that person can often seriously help you further. The Bol.com system can do a lot of extra tricks, for example if you incorrectly processed a return they can overwrite your decision and help you put it through correctly. Certainly in the beginning there are many ambiguities about the Bol.com platform, but that is a matter of getting used to and within a few days you scroll through your seller account as if you never did anything else.
Amazon service, on the other hand, is a lot harder to reach. They don't have a landline number and calling regular customer service doesn't help either. There is no transfer from consumer customer service to Amazon merchant partner customer service. This makes it a very independent journey, which can be exciting, but some support would sometimes be useful. Instead, you can email Amazon every day. In the past it sometimes took weeks for a response, but that should now be shorter. Both companies have a contact form on which you can already describe the right contact person, but speaking directly to a person is impossible, unlike Bol.
Which will you choose Bol or Amazon?
For a new e-commercer it is still easier to start on Bol. Bol is much faster to accepted as a seller, and since it only appeals to the Dutch and Belgian markets, it is relatively small-scale. This gives you a good chance to take your first steps with a smaller budget. Good customer service, a clear platform structure and sufficient growth opportunities. Of course, it makes sense that with 'only' 15 million consumers, it is more difficult to make large-scale sales.
Amazon, on the other hand, is a bit more advanced. Not only in its marketing and promotion capabilities, but also in its sign-up, customer service and fulfillment. Want to jump in at the deep end? There are plenty of people online who went before you. So, enough references! In addition, a higher level of difficulty poses a greater risk and that greater risk can also lead to greater rewards. It wouldn't be the first time a 16-year-old has turned over 1.6 Million next to his high school career.
The problem is, however, that this image for Bol.com has been adopted one-on-one and this does not seem to be so actually true. Yes, there are large parties on Bol with over 4000 products, and we all know the guys with a (rented) villa in Bali or an Audi R8. However, this is not what we want to promote, as these people are true outliers. Let it be an extra €3,000 to €6,000 euros per month. This is quite a lot, compared to only having a working week of less than 20 hours. That's what matters to us. Our users report an average jump of 10-20% (in absolute numbers: €1,000 to €4,000) when using e-pickr as their product searching tool.
That's how e-pickr helps you, and this has been scientifically proven!
Want to know more about the differences between Bol.com and Amazon as sellers?