Bathroom specialist X²O – 35 showrooms in Belgium and the Netherlands – is growing at lightning speed. Retail Director Annelies Braeckman: “We mainly focused on the origins of our sales. But we realized that a store’s success depends on many more factors.”
Annelies Braeckman, as Retail Director, is responsible for the stores, the webshop, and X²O’s marketing & communication. The organization – owned by the Legio Group and sister company of Overstock – now has 21 showrooms in Belgium and 14 in the Netherlands, and still sees plenty of room for expansion: in Belgium, the Netherlands, and possibly France.
Differences between Belgium and the Netherlands
With its unique B2C concept, X²O delivers directly to the end consumer, something particularly unique in Belgium and something that allows the organization to react very quickly. But the concept also resonates strongly in the Netherlands, thanks to sharp pricing, excellent service, and attractive showrooms. So much so that X²O also aims to work toward nationwide coverage there.
“It is important to look at location choices in the Netherlands through a different lens than in Belgium.”
Once the team began their ‘exploration journey’ in the Netherlands, they quickly discovered that Dutch consumers shop differently from Belgian consumers. This is clearly reflected in the many furniture boulevards across the Netherlands. Dutch consumers like to compare products; combination visits are very common for large purchases such as a bathroom.
“Expansion is a complicated decision: location determines three-quarters of a store’s success.”
Comparing apples to apples
RetailSonar guided X²O through this professionalization process. Annelies: “It is helpful to bring in a partner for complicated decisions such as expansion. Location determines three-quarters of a store’s success.”
“Previously, the figures of existing stores were extrapolated to potential new locations. We mainly focused on the origins of sales. But we realized that a store’s success depends on many more factors. Especially in our situation: you don’t buy a bathroom every day — it is an investment product.”
Hotspots for new showrooms
“It was quite a challenge to assign qualitative scores to things like perfect neighbours and competitors. But now we are able to compare apples with apples. We tested the results on our current stores, and the revenue figures matched well.”
“Thanks to RetailSonar, we found the right hotspots for our new stores in Roeselare and Arlon, which have started off very well.”
For both countries, X²O first had a territory scan carried out. The white spot analysis and heatmaps helped X²O determine the right hotspots for the newly opened showrooms, such as Roeselare and Arlon. Annelies: “Both stores started very well. We were able to fully take cannibalisation into account. And now that we will soon start using RetailSonar’s Explore platform, we will be able to perform territory scans ourselves. This gives us insight into the origin of online revenue, the amount of revenue attributable to each store, and the halo effect.”
Optimal local marketing campaigns
“We now have a distribution plan that is far more optimal, flexible, and insightful than the method we used before.” For this, X²O uses RetailSonar’s campaign tool. Whereas they used to conduct a campaign optimization exercise externally only once every one or two years, X²O can now autonomously make decisions around each leaflet distribution thanks to the tool.
“We now decide much more autonomously about our leaflet distribution. This allows us to respond much faster!”
Annelies: “The tool is user-friendly and visual; it offers much more flexibility than our previous method in Excel. This means we can now redo this for every leaflet exercise. We can adjust parameters ourselves (such as budget, type of leaflet, target audience) and then see the expected results directly on the map. This allows us to target exactly the right areas and save costs or deploy them more effectively.”
“The team is very approachable, responds quickly, and strives for the best customer service.”
Annelies is very positive about the RetailSonar team. “Their people are extremely strong: they are very approachable, they respond quickly, and they are patient and driven to provide excellent customer service. Suggestions are well received, and they listen very attentively. If there is a problem, they jump on it right away and don’t let go until they have an answer.”
