The founder, Frans Beekwilder (1896-1960) was the son of a goldsmith. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a letter-engraver. Because of his fascination with the possibilities of alpahabetic writing he became an edict writer at big warehouses like ‘De Fransche Bazar’, ‘Gerzon Bros.’ en ‘De Bijenkorf’. In the course of time he became an expert in his line of business. Later in life he also gave courses to retailers and window-dressers and was examiner at trainings for window-dressers.
Foresight
Shortly after WW I the trade of window-dressing and decorating gained interest very fast. Frans Beekwilder saw the possibilities and in 1923 he started a supply company for window-dressing materials. He called it A.R.O (which stood for General Advertising Enterprise) Frans Beekwilder. The assortment mostly existed of cardboard, paint and pencils. During the fifties these materials slowly fell in to the background. The range of products got much wider, due to new materials such as synthetics.
International
At the beginning of 1960 Frans Beekwilder died. His widow, the late Mrs. J.A. Beekwilder-Janse, took over the daily management of the company, which was not easy having two little children. At the time the company employed four people, but already had a wide product range and purchased international. In 1962 they already travelled behind the ‘iron curtain’, into former East-Germany and Czechoslovakia. Around 1970 Rob Beekwilder took over the daily management together with his wife Annemieke.
In 1972 and 1980 Rob and Annemieke bought the adjacent buildings at the Prins Hendrikkade. In 1989 both the storage and the place where the goods were forwarded moved to a new hall in Sloterdijk. In 1992 a complete renovation by monument specialist and architect Prof. Joop van Stigt turned the four different buildings at the Prins Hendrikkade into one big building. In 1998 the Beekwilder distribution centre in Diemen opened its doors. This meant an enormous step forward in the logistic customer service.
Today the direction of Beekwilder consists of three people: Rob Beekwilder, Annemieke Beekwilder-Hooghiemstra and director Marketing & Sales Inge Wiersema. The company is still housed in the 4 adjacent buildings at the Prins Hendrikkade. There you find over 3000 square meters of showrooms, a shop, offices and studios. The distribution centre in Diemen takes up more then 10.000 square meters. More then 50 employees do business in more than 20 countries. On top of that Beekwilder has a permanent point of support in Hong Kong because of the strongly increased purchase activities in South-East Asia.
Marketing activities
Beekwilder has been very active in direct marketing almost directly from the start. An important part of the sales could be related to the distribution of leaflets. The first complete catalogue in 1970 was an enormous success. Nowadays the half-yearly edition of the catalogue, distributed in thousands of copies, is still an important feature of the company.
During the spring of 2002 the first German catalogue was introduced during the Euroshop in Düsseldorf. The sales in Germany have been increasing ever since. But also in other European countries the collections and the reliability on delivery turn out to be reasons for growth.
The Beekwilder-webshop exists since august 2002 and is one of the fastest growing activities. The fact that the website is kept up to date every day, not only with products but also with ideas and news, adds a big contribution to this.
Continuous development
An important part of the collections is developed and designed in house. An extensive network of producers worldwide warrants products of high quality and a competitive price level. Because of this it is often possible to meet the specific demands of our customers with custom made productions.
Lately we also started to offer workshops and custom-made courses in Holland. Our goal is the same as the shop-owner’s: We want their employees to be able to use decoration- and presentation materials to create a better visual merchandising and a better shopping experience. This also helps to optimise the selling-result of the shop.
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