German supermarket chain Lidl has opened the first webshop outside Germany. The honour went to the Belgians. Lidl shows with the opening of the webshop that it has serious plans to tackle business outside the German market.
In the supermarket discounter's online shop, which has been open since 22 March, Lidl sells around 350 non-food items. This range will be expanded with wine later this year. Currently, the range consists of textiles, sportswear and cooking supplies. Lidl itself says of the range: "We are going to expand the range systematically. We consciously choose to start with an initial basic version of the webshop and gradually add new services and possibilities. This way, our customers and employees can get used to Lidl with webshop themselves and we can further develop and steer it based on feedback."
Supermarket discounter
Lidl is known as the discount supermarket and they are proud of it. As such, they want to maintain this status online too. "Lidl is Lidl, also on the web. We will continue to stand for extremely competitive prices and a smart assortment. With that, we will also distinguish ourselves from the (online) competition. The last thing we want is to be associated with choice stress or expensive prices."
Logistics solution
Lidl gets Belgian online orders from Germany and they are working with Lidl's e-commerce arm in Germany. At a later date, the supermarket plans to look into another logistics solution. Orders are delivered by BPost and shipping costs are €2.99 per delivery.
Dutch market
It is also looking at expanding its e-commerce activities in the Netherlands. Currently, only wines, travel and photos are sold online. Lidl is working on a Dutch webshop behind the scenes, but when it will be launched is not yet known.
Editorial LogistiekProfs
