Online grocery store British Corner Shop has announced the opening of a new warehouse in Wijchen, The Netherlands. The unit is the first of its kind for the Bristol-based business, with full dedication to exporting its range of well-known British food and drink products to expats in Europe.
The new distribution centre doubles the size of the company’s previous warehouse, allowing it to stock a wider selection of products. It has also enabled it to hire its own employees.
British Corner Shop noted that the export industry has been impacted by Brexit, with its operation seeing a drop of 40% in turnover in the European market. The move to a fully dedicated European warehouse is expected to allow the business to offer its service free of supply chain and cross border compliance delays.
The retailer, which currently has 2,000 products from Britain’s most popular brands available to EU destinations, stocks many items not currently accessible to other supermarkets across Europe.
With the new supply chain in place, British Corner Shop plans to expand the number of brands and products on offer, increasing its range to over 5,000. This will also involve expanding the Marks & Spencer product range, including chilled, fresh and bakery, and adding new categories including alcohol and organic ranges.
Jon Farrar, Head of Marketing at British Corner Shop, said: “For British Corner Shop our customer base in Europe has, and continues to be, of great importance to us. 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.
“We feel positive that the challenges brought about by Brexit are behind us, and that we are moving forward now in way that is significantly better than before for our European customers.”
NAM Implications:
- An EU warehouse will allow for bulk transfer, thus reducing Brexit bureaucracy per sale…
- …but also leading to some stock buffering in The Netherlands.
- i.e. extra storage/wastage cost.
- But otherwise a pointer for others…
