With more than 180 branches, bookstore chain Standaard Boekhandel is a well-established name in the Belgian retail market. Guido De Smet, Director Retail: “Four years ago, we started looking for an automated solution for our location planning.”
“At that time, we already had more than 100 stores in Flanders. Many people thought we had reached our ceiling. But we were convinced that there were still many blind spots. It was simply a matter of finding them.”
This is how Standaard Boekhandel ended up working with RetailSonar. “We quickly had a good feeling about RetailSonar, mainly because the team managed to combine all available data in an intelligent and clear way. And on top of that, it turned out to be not very difficult to start using the platform ourselves.”
“In the meantime, we have evolved to the point where we use the RetailSonar platform more and more to optimize our store network, rather than simply expanding it.”
Four years later, Standaard Boekhandel has grown significantly: “Over the past years, many new stores were added, partly thanks to the tool. Moreover, we have evolved in such a way that we now use the RetailSonar platform more and more to optimize our store network, rather than just expand it. At this moment, we are relocating or closing more stores than we are opening new ones.”
“While we ourselves were going through a major evolution, RetailSonar evolved along with us. Thanks to the close collaboration and the experience we built together, the predictive models can now much better estimate the impact of closing or relocating a store on our existing network. Over the years, the platform has also evolved significantly, with a stronger emphasis on user-friendliness.”
“The RetailSonar team is open to feedback and they truly integrate that feedback into the platform.”
“The team also listens very carefully to our own experiences and input, which we greatly appreciate at Standaard Boekhandel. For example, at a certain point the ‘perfect neighbours’ feature was added to the platform. With this feature, it is possible to assign a score to specific environmental parameters for existing and new potential locations. But what is a perfect neighbour for one company is not necessarily the same for us. For a bookstore, for instance, being close to a school is an important asset. RetailSonar truly takes that kind of crucial information into account. The option to add extra parameters—on top of the standard version of the tool—is extremely valuable. It obviously only increases the reliability and relevance of the platform for us.”
Through the acquisition of bookstore Club, Standaard Boekhandel can create many new opportunities for location planning in the coming years. “Club is still in full expansion in Wallonia, a phase that Standaard Boekhandel has already passed. That is why Club also chose to start using the RetailSonar platform. Together, we are now actively looking for opportunities in the Brussels and Walloon regions. We are also considering possible international expansion. So, big plans ahead, and we will continue to rely on the expertise of RetailSonar for that.”
