Why marketplaces are e-commerce’s next frontier: insights from Douglas

Sam Peña-Taylor

German beauty retailer Douglas is two years into a significant shift to e-commerce, with its platform position setting it up to capture growth.

Douglas, the Germany-based beauty retailer, was vindicated in its pivot to e-commerce. It is now driving the company’s pan-European growth to the point of shifting the firm’s core competences.

Like most retailers, the pandemic was initially rough for Douglas. In the first nine months of the fiscal year (to June 2020), sales were down by 7.5%. Much of that decline was felt in its stores, for obvious reasons, and brick-and-mortar sales fell by 17.2%. However, e-commerce sales were a bright spot in the gloom, growing by 39.6%, according to one of the firm’s investor updates. In the third...

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