Steven Van den Ouweland

Steven Van den Ouweland's thinking centers on a single conviction, repeated in different forms across every post: marketplaces are no longer a channel, they are the market. He grounds this in hard numbers rather than sentiment, pointing out that "marketplaces vertegenwoordigen inmiddels 61% van de totale e-commerce in Europa" and that this share has climbed steadily from around 56% in 2023, with the global figure already above 80% . His conclusion from this trajectory is blunt: "de conclusie is dan ook rechttoe rechtaan: Marktplaatsen nemen elk jaar een propertioneel groter deel van een alsmaar groter wordende taart" . This is not a passing observation but the foundation of his worldview, and he extends it to a wider claim about consumer spending in Belgium, arguing that beyond the familiar Temu and Shein narrative, "het grootte deel van die aankopen verloopt via marketplaces" through Bol, Amazon, Zalando, ManoMano and specialized platforms, reframing the strategic question for brands from whether to be present on marketplaces to whether they want to be "waar de consumenten zitten" .

The origin of this conviction traces back to his own operational experience, not abstract analysis. He describes discovering the gap firsthand as a sales director at Ecover, where transitioning from traditional B2B relationships, such as selling to Albert Heijn, into marketplace sales on Bol.com exposed how unprepared traditional consumer brands were for the infrastructure marketplaces demand, from individual package picking instead of pallet delivery to consumer-facing pricing ¹⁴¹⁵. That gap between what brands are used to and what marketplaces require is the problem Distrilink was built to solve, and it remains the throughline of everything he writes years later: brands need help managing "hun voorraad, pricing, content, logistiek, marketing en customer service" to operate at marketplace speed .

A second major theme is his insistence that operations and marketing cannot be treated as separate disciplines, a point he returns to repeatedly with specific figures on ad spend. He notes that European digital ad spend rose 10.5% to €131.1 billion and retail media grew even faster at 16.7%, reaching €13.3 billion, then pivots immediately to the risk this creates: "een succesvolle campagne die plots voor stockbreuken of vertraagde leveringen zorgt, waardoor net de klanten die je net had overtuigd, ontevreden afhaken" . His answer is structural, not tactical, explaining that Distrilink deliberately houses retail media and fulfilment "onder één dak" because the real value lies in aligning campaigns directly with what operations can actually support . This same logic drives his repeated emphasis on delivery as the make-or-break moment of customer trust. He calls delivery "het enige fysieke contactmoment tussen een merk en zijn klant" and argues that a single missed deadline undermines trust regardless of product or webshop quality . He backs this with EU research showing more than a third of online shoppers experienced problems, most often late delivery, and in some member states over half report such issues , and he connects it directly to concrete marketplace enforcement, citing Amazon's new 90% On-Time Delivery Rate requirement for FBM sellers on Amazon.de starting July 2026, with listing deactivation risks looming from September .

A third recurring theme is his read on AI's disruptive effect on how products get found and chosen, which he treats as an escalating, near-existential shift for brand visibility. He states plainly that "meer dan de helft van de Europese consumenten gebruikt inmiddels AI-agents om online aankopen te doen," and stresses that these agents ignore emotional appeal entirely, comparing instead "harde data: is het product op voorraad, wanneer wordt het geleverd, hoe consistent is een merk daarin geweest" . His warning is specific and operational: "ontbrekende of onvolledige data betekent vaak dat een AI-agent je product gewoon niet meeneemt in de vergelijking, nog voor een mens de kans krijgt om te twijfelen" . He traces this trend across the industry, from Amazon's Rufus to Allegro's partnership with OpenAI and signals of a similar bol initiative, framing the near future as one where "marketplaces zélf bepalen welke producten AI aanbeveelt" based on content, reviews, attributes and logistics performance . He treats Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's shareholder letter as confirmation from the top of the industry, summarizing its implication starkly: "AI is namelijk niet langer 'de kers op de taart'... het wordt complexer, niet eenvoudiger" for brands, who now must synchronize content, pricing, stock and fulfilment in realtime rather than relying on a good product and some ads .

A fourth thread is his attentiveness to regulatory and platform shifts as early signals brands should act on rather than ignore. He flags the EU's new ban on destroying unsold clothing and footwear as exposing a real weakness, noting that "veel merken weten pas laat hoeveel overstock, retouren of einde-reeks voorraad ze eigenlijk hebben," and positions marketplaces as the practical channel to sell that stock rather than destroy it, provided brands have the data to plan sales in advance . Similarly, he reads the TikTok Shop launch not as a single event but as proof that social commerce is fragmenting into distinct platform strategies, with "TikTok zet vol in op entertainment en directe conversie" while "Instagram blijft sterk in inspiratie en merkbeleving," and draws the broader conclusion that the customer journey is collapsing into single-platform, single-session purchases .

Across these posts, his own platform, Pulse, is consistently positioned as the mechanism that operationalizes his thesis, giving brands "in real-time inzicht in voorraad, orderstatus en leverprestaties" and ensuring product data is consistent across channels , and serving as what he calls "het kloppend hart van onze content- en datastromen" . The concrete takeaway he offers brands, repeated in different guises, is that visibility, trust and even AI recommendability are now downstream of unglamorous fundamentals: accurate stock data, complete product attributes, and reliable delivery performance, all synchronized in realtime rather than managed as afterthoughts.