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Introduction

*Taking the opportunity of the kick-off celebrations of Vanderveen’s 125th anniversary in Assen, the IADS visited three Dutch department stores at the end of April 2022: De Bijenkorf and Peek & Cloppenburg in Amsterdam, and Vanderveen in Assen.

In the Netherlands, the department store business is mainly led by De Bijenkorf, running seven locations throughout the country. Peek & Cloppenburg (accounting for approximately 75 stores in Germany and now owning Magasin du Nord), runs 4 stores in the Netherlands. Finally, Vanderveen has a single location in Assen and is still run by the Vanderveen founding family.

Differences are huge between these three businesses. Each targeting specific customer groups, they offer a particular take on department stores, from international luxury to mass-market and ultra-local purpose. A review in pictures is also available to the IADS members.*

De Bijenkorf, the international luxury department store

Founded in 1870 in Amsterdam, De Bijenkorf was once a member of the IADS. Since 2011 the department store is owned by the Selfridges Group. In 2013, De Bijenkorf launched its "premium experience" strategy, investing more than 200 million euros in five years: the goal was to transform the business to reach a higher international standard in terms of brands, services and shopping experience. Five stores were closed to only focus on those able to convey the premium message. De Bijenkorf now has stores in Amstelveen, Amsterdam, The Hague, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The e-commerce branch opened in 2009 to serve The Netherlands and has developed in Europe with French, German, Austrian and Belgian websites, heavily communicating on social media to catch the local consumers’ attention.

Located on Dam Square, the Amsterdam flagship store takes cues from Selfridges. The ground floor is organized according to a common layout and product offer, gathering beauty on one side (including a beauty salon), and luxury accessories concessions on the other side. There was quite a lot of traffic at the time of the visit (weekday around 6 pm) and customers were queuing at Saint Laurent, Dior, and Louis Vuitton. In addition to its shop-in-shop, the latter currently has a RTW pop-up store at the very center of the floor. It didn’t seem to attract customers despite its perfect execution: it lacks the intimacy to try RTW on. Overall, with its white columns and marble, De Bijenkorf’s ground floor resembles a smaller version of Selfridges’ Oxford Street.

The upper floors are organized around a large air shaft acting as a well of light and spanning across the height of the building from the first floor to the fourth floor. The first floor is dedicated to men’s fashion, shoes, and underwear. A coffee shop complements the offer. The floor was quite busy thanks to the important surface dedicated to sneakers. The overall impression is good, and the circulation is easy.

The second floor is dedicated to women’s fashion. The section dedicated to luxury brands is airy and filled with natural light, but the offer seems scarce despite the appeal of big players such as Balenciaga and Gucci. Brand spaces are not personalized, they are more soft corners, using all the same fixtures. A Christian Louboutin shop-in-shop completes the luxury offer. The rest of the floor is dedicated to more affordable and classic fashion with a premium price point, and mixes with local brands: packed with merchandise, the look & feel is old.

The more you go up, the older the store looks, and the less traffic there is, hence the less one feels like shopping. The third floor is gathering women’s shoes, various accessories, lingerie, hosiery, and socks, along with bed and bath linens as well as tableware and kitchenware. Despite visible efforts, the shoe section is not very appealing. Once again, the look & feel is a bit old due to a beige floor, the harsh lighting, and large alleys lacking intimacy, reminding us of the 80’. As for the men’s shoe section, the space dedicated to sneakers is big.

The product offer on the fourth floor is gathering many categories: luggage (with not many products to be bought), home accessories, books, kids wear, toys and a quite important sportswear section. A small section is also dedicated to tech goods and looks brand new.

The fifth floor offers a terrace and a restaurant. It’s also the place to find the click & collect. When it comes to such a crucial service, the IADS advocates for appealing spaces located on the upper floors. Despite being on the top floor, it’s probably too high a trip considering the space is nothing more than a long counter with a small sitting area.

De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam is the company’s flagship store. The store is overall a bit disappointing besides the Selfridges look & feel on the ground floor, but minus the experiential feeling one can have in the Oxford Street location.

Peek & Cloppenburg, a high-street positioning

The first Peek & Cloppenburg store opened in 1901 in Dusseldorf. Since the 70s, the company expanded abroad, with its first two locations in Utrecht and Anvers. The expansion continued into the 90s until now with locations in Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. In 2021, the company acquired Magasin du Nord. They also run four online stores: Germany, Netherlands, Austria, and Poland.

Also located on Dam Square and facing De Bijenkorf, the store spans four small floors, and only offers women’s fashion, men’s fashion, and a few accessories. The store was not busy at all at the time of the visit. The look & feel is closer to a C&A store than a true department store. The store is packed with merchandise. For women, the product offer is weirdly mixing sportswear and occasion wear, local and international brands. Overall, the store doesn’t offer any interesting features besides a more upbeat section located in the basement: gathering younger men and women’s products from brands such as Adidas, G-Star Raw, Tommy Jeans, and Champion, more efforts are shown when it comes to music, fixtures and visual merchandising.

Vanderveen, catering to the local community

Vanderveen was founded in Assen in 1897. From the very beginning, it was ambitioning to become a department store. Today, Vanderveen is still 100% owned and run by the founding family which is very much involved in sales, operations, and management. The store covers 17,500 sqm of sales floor space and is one of the top three largest department stores in the Netherlands.

The product offer, rather mass-market oriented, is amazingly broad. The ground floor gathers women’s fashion, men’s fashion, shoes, and leather goods (including large sneakers and denim shop-in-shops) as well as kids wear, cosmetics & beauty, jewelry, bed & bath linens, an impressive arts & crafts and stationery goods store, a souvenir shop, and a grocery section including a butcher stand and offering tables to eat or have coffee.

Across the other floors, customers can find literally everything, from a large music section completed by a stage hosting live music on a regular basis, baby apparel and equipment, toys, a gaming store, DIY & home improvement products, an Intersport store, pet supplies & small pets, an impressive bike & repair store, a computer & repair store, tableware, cookware & kitchenware departments, furniture, a hardwood floors store, made-to-order services for kitchen furniture and curtains, an art store (pieces to buy or to rent), a WWF store, a beauty salon, an art gallery, a salon hosting talks, a book store, a wellness center and two restaurants (one of opening on a large kids playground). Many shop-in-shops are local brands run under a concession model.

What makes Vanderveen unique compared to the usual department stores is twofold. Firstly, the endless product offer: seeing it, one understands that Assen people (the city accounts for 65,000 residents) don’t have many choices other than shopping there. Besides, the product diversity clearly addresses all generations: in a way, the product profusion is rooting back to the very origin of department stores. Secondly, Vanderveen doesn’t have an online store. Considering it only accounts for a single very local store, the need for e-commerce is small, and developing this channel would unlikely be profitable. The strategy is really to cater to local customers who are coming from roughly 100 km around. In that perspective, the store also appeals to German customers: open every Sunday, Vanderveen represents an opportunity to shop knowing that German department stores can only open their doors four Sundays per year.

Conclusion

When it comes to retail, the Netherlands is not a major scene. Still, some interesting points are worth keeping in mind. Despite efforts to reach international standards in terms of product offer, services, and experiences, De Bijenkorf kind of fails as the offer is not really bringing any differentiation while services and an experiential feeling are nowhere to be found. The Amsterdam Peek & Cloppenburg’s location doesn’t really feel like a department store, with a terrible look & feel. Vanderveen, an outsider considering its single location and absence of e-commerce, offers an interesting perspective on how to be an anchor and relevantly serve local communities.

Credits: IADS (Christine Montard)