Online grocery store British Corner Shop, which specialises in supplying popular British brand goods to customers in Europe, has launched its own warehouse in the Netherlands.
The online retailer initially established an EU base in the Netherlands with a third-party distribution centre in July last year. The move was made to bypass Brexit-induced import issues which led the company to suffer a 40% drop in turnover in the European market, it said.
The new distribution centre is double the size, which has allowed for the website’s available range to be expanded significantly. It also enables British Corner Shop to hire its own employees, which it said “ensures a higher quality of packing and stocking management, improving communication, and allowing greater oversight over orders”. Integrating with the third party provider’s stock management systems had also proven a challenge, but now the retailer has “full control” it said.
Immediate plans include expansion of the brands and products on offer, increasing its range available for delivery to EU destinations to more than 5,000 British products, from around 2,000 currently. This includes expanding its M&S product range, including chilled, fresh and bakery, and adding new categories including alcohol and organic.
“Our customer base in Europe has, and continues to be, of great importance to us,” said Jon Farrar, head of marketing at British Corner Shop.
“Brexit changed the way we serve our customers, adding complexity in both the physical movement of goods and compliance in terms of the cross-border trade between the UK and Europe. With our new integrated, warehousing and supply chain operations based in the Netherlands, we have welcomed our first cohort of local employees and are dispatching orders for next-day delivery across Europe successfully. The initial customer feedback has been extremely positive,” he added.
Farrar added that the challenges from Brexit for the company “are behind us”.
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