Once upon a time there were 3 study buddies
Picture this: 3 friends in café de dijk near the oostplein in rotterdam. They study business administration at erasmus university and want to start a company together. They write two goals on a beermat: make money with mp3 players and make customers happy. This is of course about pieter zwart and his study buddies paul de jong and bart kuijpers.
Entrepreneurial blood
Pieter zwart, ceo and figurehead of coolblue, was introduced to entrepreneurship by his parents (entrepreneurs). In an interview, pieter says that he saw absolutely no obstacles on the road. “guys, monday morning nine o'clock, chamber of commerce,” pieter said and so it happened. From that moment on, pieter's room served as a shop and office. His parents' garage became a storage space and mp3man.nl was born. A modest start with a focus on customer service or 'making customers happy'. This quickly formed the dna of what later became coolblue and grew into one of the largest and best-known e-commerce companies and largest electronics seller in the netherlands.
The name coolblue
The name coolblue only came later. On the coolblue website they say that the name was created and devised as a (counter) reaction to a large internet department store called hotorange. The large webshop was completely externally financed, outsourced everything to others and had no customer service of its own. They wanted to go against that. They had the opposite in mind. Hot became cool and orange became blue. Hotorange went bankrupt in 2006, partly due to problems with customer service; slow responses to questions and problems with deliveries. After the bankruptcy in 2006, hotorange's assets were sold and the brand disappeared from the market. It's an example of how challenging the e-commerce market can be, especially in industries with low margins and high competition.
Facts & figures
- Initially, Coolblue consisted of all kinds of separate web shops. They started with MP3man.nl, later numerous domains were added (including PDAshop.nl and Latopshop.nl). The number of web shops has grown in ten years to a total of more than 300. In 2018, all domains were merged on Coolblue.nl.
- 2004: start web shops and delivery in Belgium.
- 2005: winner of the Thuiswinkel Award and with a turnover increase of almost 5% in five years, they achieved third place in the Technology Fast 50 Awards for the fastest growing technology companies in the Netherlands.
- 2008: 4 physical stores in the Netherlands (2024: 29).
- 2011: establishing brand values (friends, flexible, quirky and just doing it) and designing the current logo.
- 2012: turnover increased to 168 million euros and Pieter Zwart was named best online entrepreneur of the year.
Where it once started with a student room and a garage, the 13,000 square meter Centrale Magazijn was established in Tilburg in 2015. This will later grow to 88,000 square meters. - In 2016: buyout of Paul de Jong and Bart Kuijpers with the help of investor HAL.
- 2016: launch of CoolblueBezorgt, our own in-house delivery network and installation service.
- 2017: first Coolblue XXL store in Amsterdam.
- 2018: Launch of CoolblueFietst, a delivery network that delivers small orders in urban areas in the Netherlands and Belgium.
- 2019: start of sales and installation of solar panels.
- 2020: expansion to Germany.
- 2021: establishment of CoolblueEnergie.
- 2023: highest customer satisfaction score ever: 71 (Net Promoter Score).
- 2023: flagship store in Rotterdam.
- 2024: 2nd store in Amsterdam and 2023 record turnover of 2.41 billion euros in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and with Coolblue Energie.
Beating heart: coolblue people
Nearly 6,000 employees (coolblue employees) work there, including customer service employees, developers, bicycle deliverers and solar panel installers. Everyone does their best to achieve that famous smile. Coolblue says that the slogan 'anything for a smile' certainly applies to its employees, which is not only reflected in the informal and energetic work culture at coolblue, but also in the job satisfaction. Coolblue has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 539 company reviews on glassdoor (mid-july 2024). So most of them are having a good time. Of course there are also critical voices. Yes, you are encouraged and invested in your development, but the actual career opportunities are sometimes somewhat limited. And although the atmosphere and culture are positive, the workload can be high, especially during busy periods (black friday, sinterklaas, christmas). Employees have indicated (glassdoor and indeed) that work-life balance is sometimes difficult to achieve due to the intensive working hours.
Humor
Although it is not included in their brand values, humor plays a major role at coolblue. Pieter zwart has also become quite famous for his humorous appearances in coolblue commercials. Some of these have become iconic. I can still remember clearly that there was going to be a takeover for a billion. Zwart turned this into a hilarious joke and called the staff together for a meeting on december 1. The announcement of this meeting 'accidentally' leaked to the outside world. But it turned out that the major foreign player that zwart put forward as a takeover partner turned out to be none other than sinterklaas. Masterful! in a conversation with adformatie he said: “the best part of the whole stunt were the four minutes in the canteen at the coolblue head office. Everyone wanted to know what i was announcing. The tension was visible on the faces. The relief when sinterklaas came into the picture was enormous. Ultimately, all coolblue employees walked out of the canteen with a huge smile and motivated down to their toes. And that was the most important thing. We wanted to thank all coolblue employees for all their efforts during this extremely busy time. It's fantastic to see that we can all achieve this. Of course you can send everyone a thank you email, but we just do things a little differently.”
What can we learn from coolblue?
Coolblue shows how powerful a customer-oriented approach can be. By always putting customer satisfaction first, coolblue not only built up a large customer base, but also a group of loyal fans who helped coolblue grow. In addition, in the rapidly changing world of e-commerce, the company remains relevant by continuously investing in new technologies, better logistics and a wider range.
It is an inspiring story. Pieter himself gives a golden tip to starters: “if you have the idea of doing business online, then you should just do it”. Just like himself and his mates paul de jong and bart kuijpers. From the pub to the chamber of commerce. And yes, look where that got him!
Sources:
Coolblue, Adinformatie, Emerce, Business Insider, Glassdoor, Indeed, Nu-nl, The entrepreneur
