As a bol.com seller, you're always focused on the products you sell to the customer. You're constantly expanding or optimizing your range to ensure the customer gets the best offer. It's essential to remember that this customer isn't your own - they come to the bol.com platform because they trust bol.com and its range.
You, as a seller, use the retail space that bol.com offers you as a partner seller and provide a range that's been approved by bol.com. It might go without saying, but this also means you need to respect the rules that bol.com has set for partner sellers like you and me. After all, you get access to a massive audience in return!
Service standards
Bol.com places a high value on delivering excellent service to the customer. The platform believes in meeting customer expectations by providing outstanding service, which keeps customers coming back to the web store.
As a partner seller, you're also responsible for meeting the service standards that bol.com sets for using the platform. These standards are based on factors like fulfilling delivery promises, your availability, response time, the number of cancellations and returns, the number of customer questions, and your rating.
Each week, it's checked whether you meet bol.com's service standards. Within these standards, 'on-time delivery', 'cancellations', and 'response time' have the most significant impact on customer satisfaction.
A 24-week period begins, which you can track in your account. During these weeks, you're monitored to see if you meet the service standards. You can make up to 4 mistakes during this time. If you make a mistake, you get a so-called strike. The first 4 times, this won't have direct consequences, but the 5th time, your store will be temporarily closed, and you'll need to submit an improvement plan.
Performance score
Whether you deliver on time, don't cancel orders, and send a track and trace code to the customer is visualized in a performance score that you can see in your sales account under the 'performance' tab. This score is calculated based on how well you've met bol.com's service standards over the past 6 weeks.
The better your performance score, the higher your chances of getting the buy block. Your store rating also counts.
Tip: If you choose to ship products from home, in addition to LVB, and focus on delivering on time, including a track and trace code, and not canceling orders, this will have a positive impact on your performance score.
Policy points
In addition to the service standards, which are tested with a performance score, bol.com has implemented a new system since 2020. Bol.com now works with policy points to provide customers with the best quality and service, along with partner sellers, and to prevent unfair competition on the platform.
In your sales account, under 'performance', you'll now also find a 'policy points' section. Every seller starts with 100 points, which is your credit and will likely not be affected if you follow the rules.
Each violation has a specific weight. For example, self-promotion on the platform can cost you up to 20 points, while selling unwanted products can cost you 100 points. If these points are deducted from your 100 points and you end up with 0 points, it means your sales account will be permanently closed.
Range with a caveat
Because you don't want to run into trouble with bol.com, which could lead to a permanent closure of your account, it's a good idea to think about your product selection. There are some products that aren't suitable for selling on bol.com, such as those you can find in our library:
- Items without official retail packaging
- Personalized items
- Services and subscriptions
- Products that don't fit into an existing product category
In addition to a list of prohibited items, bol.com also considers the ethical aspect of products sold on the platform. The health of customers always takes priority over commercial interests.
Additional Sales Rights
Finally, there are some categories where you need additional sales rights to sell products. This is to ensure the safety and reliability of the product range. This is mainly the case for the product group jewelry, watches, and accessories.
Again, I don't want to scare you, but let this be a reality check to help you do even better than you're already doing!
