Case studies

How do you build a 5 million euro a year business on bol?

Lars Hurkmans·Co-founder·1 October 2026·Reading time 14 minutes

You don't build a multi-million business on bol with one good product, but with a repeatable approach: choosing products on market data, steering on visibility every day, advertising until you rank organically, and calculating with your net margin after all costs. We worked out how that works by analysing TLS Commerce, which grew the Nuvance brand to around 5 million euros in revenue per year in five years.

To understand what it takes to build a multi-million business on bol, we took a look behind the scenes at TLS Commerce. For our documentary we followed the team at the office, in the studio where the listings are made and in the warehouse. Below we explain, topic by topic, what matters if you want to sell at that scale, and how TLS approaches it. The figures come from TLS itself, as mentioned in the video.

Who is TLS Commerce, and why do we analyse this company?

TLS Commerce is the company behind the Nuvance brand, founded by two friends from Limburg. Nuvance is in the top 50 largest brands on bol, alongside brands such as Nintendo, Lego and Pampers. The company turns over around 5 million euros a year, with about 300 products, 14 people and around 35,000 orders a month.

Three things make TLS interesting to analyse:

• They started recently and from scratch. In March 2020, around the start of the pandemic, with no experience on bol and 4,000 euros in starting capital, 2,000 euros each. Their first product was resistance bands, and they made their first listings in Paint. An earlier venture, a bicycle shop, had gone completely wrong according to them. Their growth therefore shows what is possible in today's bol market, not what an established brand with a head start can do.
• They do almost everything themselves. Product research, sourcing, content, advertising and the warehouse are all in-house. That lets you see in one company how each part works, and how the parts fit together.
• They are open about their numbers. Their margin, their returns, the ratio between ads and organic sales and the times things went wrong are all covered. Those numbers are what turn a success story into something you can learn from.

What does a bol business with 5 million in revenue look like?

Like a team with a repeatable approach, not like one successful product. At TLS, that team keeps about 20% net after all costs. At that scale it is no longer about one lucky find, but about a way of working you repeat for every product: choosing a product on market data, launching it well, monitoring visibility every day, and staying sharp on margin, stock and cash flow.

TLS kept that way of working largely in-house, from product research and content to the warehouse. That lets the team move fast: according to TLS, a product with a lot of potential can be online within a day. How each part works is explained in the sections below.

Is selling on bol still doable if you start now?

Yes, but the bar is higher than a few years ago. There are more sellers, professional content is the standard, European regulation has become stricter and without advertising a new product is practically invisible. Listings made in Paint, as TLS did in 2020, would no longer work today according to TLS.

What makes bol attractive is that the customers are already there. According to the video, bol has 14 million active customers a month and around 45,000 active sellers, and almost half of its revenue in 2024 came from external sellers. According to ecommercenews, bol recorded a gross merchandise volume of 5.9 billion euros that year. You don't have to acquire customers, but you do have to win them over every time. Bol is a comparison platform: someone looking for a coffee machine sees several sellers side by side and chooses. In your own web shop, the customer has already decided to buy from you.

There are two limitations. You don't manage the customer data yourself, so you can't send email campaigns or see who comes back more often. And bol's algorithm decides who ranks at the top. According to the video, 80% of purchases happen on the first page of search results. If you are on page 3, hardly anyone finds you.

Why do low-priced products work well on bol?

With low-priced products, customers decide faster, compare less and hesitate less. Spending 20 euros is not a big decision, spending 100 euros is. If you are found and your product looks good, you get the sale. The funnel is short, and visibility becomes your most important weapon.

The downside is a low margin per unit sold. With a low margin every cent counts, which is why TLS keeps as much as possible in-house, from content to the warehouse.

How do you choose a product based on market data?

By looking at the market first and only then at the product. Product research is the foundation: this is where things go right or wrong before you spend a single euro on stock. In your seller account you only see your own figures, not those of the market. For a product choice you want to know how much a category is worth, who the competitors are, how much they sell and what their reviews look like.

TLS chose its first products on gut feeling: it was the pandemic, so resistance bands would surely sell. With more experience, the team started backing its choices with data. TLS uses Panorama in MarktMentor for this, which shows per category the market value, sales, impressions, average price, number of offers and brands and the review score over time.

According to TLS, there is no hard go or no-go score. The data gives direction, and the team decides based on those data points, combined with knowledge, experience and gut feeling. How to use categories as a starting point for research is explained in the framework for product research on bol.

How do you approach sourcing from suppliers?

With as few suppliers as possible that you know well. At one point TLS had 10 to 15 suppliers, with as many contact persons, time differences and separate agreements. Now TLS sources most of its range through one supplier in China, which also handles products TLS used to buy elsewhere. You give up some margin, because that party also needs to earn, but you gain speed. And with a large range at one party, negotiating is easier, because you know what you have in each other.

On negotiating, the advice in the video is to take it easy. If you have a price that gives you a good margin, work with it. A relationship grows stronger if you don't push for a price cut every week. TLS never asks for a lower price without a reason. The video also mentions a few fixed rules:

• Don't open on Alibaba with price negotiations. Chinese suppliers receive hundreds of messages a day, and it makes a negative impression.
• Many sellers on Alibaba are not factories but traders.
• Certificates that suppliers send along are regularly forged or meant for a different product.
• Request samples from at least three suppliers and never pay 100% up front.

More on this in how do you get taken seriously by Chinese suppliers?

How does bol's algorithm decide who ranks at the top?

The algorithm shows the products that are the most popular and the most relevant for a search. Only products that score on both reach the top.

Popularity is about the interactions with your product: page visits, additions to wish lists, additions to the shopping basket and sales. Page visits count the least, sales the most. The algorithm looks back up to 90 days, with the most weight on the last 28 days and the very most on the last 7 days. If a product has many interactions in a row, it gains momentum and an extra boost.

Relevance is about whether your product matches what the customer is looking for: are the keywords in your title, are your specifications correct, and are you in the right category?

Why should you track your positions every day?

Because without positions you can't steer, and bol doesn't show them to you. Whether you are in position 3 or position 15 for a keyword, you don't know without tooling. At TLS, the data analyst calls ranking one of the most important factors of a product. The team tracks positions on relevant keywords and in categories every day, among other tools with My Rankings, and uses a rising or falling position as a reason to make choices on stock or price.

The biggest mistake, according to the video, is running out of stock. If you are sold out for 10 days, a gap appears in your data and you drop in the ranking. Competitors take over your position and your sales and build up reviews. When you come back, you don't start from zero, but you are weeks behind.

A new product is caught in a circle: you need sales for ranking, ranking for visibility, and visibility for sales. TLS breaks it by launching every listing as well as possible according to bol's guidelines and advertising until the organic ranking is built. Why a new product starts at the bottom is explained in why does a new product start at the bottom on bol?

How do you advertise at launch, and when do you scale back?

At launch you advertise on all three placements and on all relevant keywords, and you scale back as soon as your organic ranking or your stock gives reason to. According to the video, the top positions on relevant keywords are practically always sponsored. Without an advertising budget you are invisible, and that was different five years ago.

The three placements are the search results, the category pages and the product pages. In the search results and on category pages, customers orient themselves. On the product page the decision is made: that is where they look at specifications, price, reviews and images, and where bol also shows other, often competing products. If you advertise there with your own products, visitors stay with your brand.

There are two reasons to scale back:

1. Ranking. If you rank well organically on a keyword or in a category, you can consider no longer advertising there and relying on your organic impressions.
2. Stock. If you sell faster than expected and your stock threatens to run out, you don't want to spend money on ads you can't deliver on. It is better to sell more slowly than to lose your ranking.

At launch, 100% of sales at TLS come from ads. Across the whole, mature range that is on average 25% ads and 75% organic. That is their ratio, not a fixed standard. What advertising costs at launch is worked out in launching a product on bol: what does advertising really cost?

What makes a main image and listing strong?

A main image has to stand out among those of the competitors: the product shown as large and interesting as possible, with all included accessories visible, so the customer sees what they get. At TLS, the content creator photographs the product from a low angle or slightly from below, so it looks bigger. According to the video, the difference between a click-through rate of 2% and 5% is huge; those are example values, not TLS figures.

A good listing starts with a strategy, not with photos. What are the customer's problems, what does the product solve, what are the unique benefits, and what is included? Then come the photos, the cut-outs, the infographics and the lifestyle images. TLS started with listings based on what the team itself liked and with images from the supplier. The team only really made progress when it started analysing competitors' listings.

How do you get reviews on bol?

With patience, because as a seller you have little control over it. Bol sends review requests to a selection of customers itself, but only a small share responds, and regulation hardly allows you to actively collect reviews yourself. TLS launches products without reviews, advertises heavily on them and counts on 200 to 300 sales for a first good review. Once that arrives, the ball starts rolling.

Reviews are also feedback on your product. TLS looks at the new reviews every day. If there is a 1-star review among them, the team checks whether the product or the listing can be improved, so other customers don't run into the same problem. How to use reviews to differentiate your product is explained in finding differentiation through reviews.

How do you manage a growing range?

With a fixed rhythm: the numbers every day, the team every week, and a full analysis every month. At TLS the working day starts with the sales analysis, the average selling price, branded shelves and the reviews. If something drops, the team acts immediately. In the weekly meeting, TLS checks whether everyone is looking in the same direction.

In the monthly analysis, four factors decide whether a product stays or goes:

• the margin;
• the returns;
• the ranking;
• the advertising budget required.

If a product is in the red zone, you first check whether the product, the content or the price can be improved. If that doesn't work, you sell it off or the stock goes to a clearance buyer. According to TLS, that money is better used elsewhere than left in the warehouse for a year and a half.

Do you outsource logistics or do it yourself?

That depends on your products and how fast you want to be able to move. For letterbox parcels, the rates of Logistics via bol (LVB) are so favourable according to TLS that no party in the Netherlands can compete. TLS ships an estimated 99% of orders via LVB and keeps the rest of the operation in-house, so that everything is arranged within a day for new launches.

For the peak months at the end of the year, you plan months ahead. TLS orders the stock for December as early as June.

How much do you keep from your revenue on bol?

Less than your revenue suggests, which is why you always calculate with your net margin. TLS mentions a gross margin of about 30% and about 20% net, after commission, shipping, advertising, returns and staff. According to the video, that margin is fragile. How to make that calculation per product is explained in calculating profitability on bol.

According to TLS, three cost items are often underestimated:

• Exchange rate. If you buy in dollars, the euro-dollar rate hits your margin directly. In 2025 it averaged 0.86 according to TLS; a rate of 1 to 1 would make a big difference for TLS.
• Returns. TLS has an estimated 6.5 to 7% returns. Part of those cannot be made ready for sale again and are written off at the purchase price; at TLS that is about 1,500 products a month. According to TLS, many sellers don't take that cost into account.
• Cash flow. You pay for your stock when you buy it, sell weeks later and get paid even later. At TLS a shipment arrived a month and a half after ordering, and the payout followed a month after the sale. In the early days TLS therefore borrowed money from family and friends. Now the company makes a liquidity analysis and forecasts for the next three years.

Which risks should you take into account?

Products that flop despite good research, a market that keeps changing, and rules you have no control over as a seller. At TLS, products the team thought would be difficult sometimes did well, and products it expected a lot from sometimes disappointed. Experience helps, but when you start you don't have it yet. So don't put all your money into one product.

In addition, bol is increasingly opening its marketplace to international sellers, more and more sellers know how it works, and the rules are getting stricter. The rules of a sales platform can always change. TLS therefore wants to spread its risk: selling on Amazon and other marketplaces besides bol, and setting up its own web shops, so it also manages the customer data itself.

What do you need to keep it up?

Perseverance and the willingness to take on everything yourself. The founders of TLS say they have worked 60 to 70 hours a week for five years, took no salary for the first three years and put all profit back into the company. The first few times you fall, and you have to keep going.

The second piece of advice from the video is to keep learning. Anyone who thinks they know everything is vulnerable, and anyone who stands still for a few months quickly falls behind. An overview of what starting in 2026 takes, from starting capital to compliance, is in is selling on bol still worth it in 2026?

In short: how to build a multi-million business on bol

• You build a multi-million business with a repeatable approach per product, not with one lucky find. Keep that approach close, so you can move fast.
• Selling on bol is still possible, but the bar is higher: more sellers, professional content, stricter rules, and advertising at launch is no longer optional.
• Choose products on market data, not on gut feeling. Look at the value of the category, the competitors, their sales and their reviews, and use the data as direction, not as a hard score.
• Work with as few suppliers as possible that you know well, and negotiate with reasons instead of pushing on price every week.
• Track your positions every day. What you don't see, you can't steer, and running out of stock costs you weeks of ranking.
• Advertise broadly at launch and scale back as soon as you rank organically or your stock gets tight. Selling more slowly is better than losing your ranking.
• Start a listing with the customer and the competition, not with the photos, and make a main image that stands out among the other sellers.
• See reviews as feedback on your product, and expect a long wait until the first good review comes in.
• Manage with a fixed rhythm and a clear bar for each product: margin, returns, ranking and advertising budget. What structurally disappoints, you sell off.
• Calculate with your net margin, including exchange rate, written-off returns and the cash flow between purchase and payout.
• Spread your risk across products and, as you grow, across channels.

Read more:

• The framework for product research on bol
• Launching a product on bol: what does advertising really cost?
• How do you calculate the profitability of a product on bol?
• How do you grow your bol store into your own brand as a starter?