Taking Action
Affordable quality
Supply chain
Environmental impact
Creating jobs
Supporting charities
Outlook for 2024
Available and affordable products
We offer customers good quality everyday essentials and products that make daily life easier or more enjoyable at the lowest price.
*As measured by market research organisation GfK. The perceived price level measures customers’ perception of a product in relation to its price.
We will measure our performance by the score of our perceived price level*, and will develop and communicate our target in 2024.
With the cost-of-living crisis, we are seeing more demand for affordable daily necessities like washing powder, shampoo and toilet rolls. Because we buy in volume, we are able to offer products like these at the lowest prices. We also look to reduce prices where possible – by, for example, implementing smarter logistics solutions and making efficiencies where possible – passing on the resulting benefits to our customers. Over the summer, a reduction in raw material and transport costs enabled us to reduce prices across our product range. Products at price levels that we consider unacceptable are replaced by alternative brands or products. During the year, we maintained a very high level of product availability – thanks to efficient stock management and continued investment in our supply chain.
We offer the lowest price on our products
We’re expanding the Action app. Now available in eight countries, it will be rolled out to three more in 2024: Austria, Poland and Italy. The app app was downloaded 5.3 million times in 2023 and provides customers with access to the Action loyalty programme, as well as information on products and promotions.
*We make sure that, at all times, we collect and use customer data responsibly and with consent. We only collect data that is strictly necessary for our business.
We are constantly looking for ways to improve our customers’ in-store experience. We assess customer preferences through regular polls and satisfaction surveys, as well as other touchpoints, including email, the Action app, our website and visits to Action stores. In doing so, we gather customer views on topics such as price and quality, and use this data to make improvements to our product range to reflect changing customer preferences and buying trends.*
We’re improving the Action shopping experience
While we offer products at the lowest prices, we work to limit how we affect the environment. In 2023, we made progress with our responsible sourcing programme, moved to more sustainable packaging and worked closely with our suppliers on upholding basic human and labour rights. We also introduced a new Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence policy.
We limit our impact on the world around us
*Including European Chemicals Agency standards and legislation in Hawaii, introduced in 2018, banning sunscreens with substances harmful to the marine environment.
Zenova Sensitive Sunmilk is just one example of how we’re working to make our products more sustainable. The sunscreen is micro-plastics free, vegan and coral reef friendly, according to international standards.* Zenova is also rich in vitamin E and comes in bottles and tubes made of at least 50% recycled plastic. Zenova has won several awards, including Best Buy, Best Test and Green Choice from the Dutch and Belgian Consumer Association.
Product quality and safety
We provide good quality products that are safe to use and comply with all quality and safety standards.
We have established preferred testing labs for all product categories, putting us on course to reach our target of 100% technical transparency by 2025.
We work to ensure that the products we sell are safe, of good quality and durable. We make sure we comply with all relevant safety and quality regulations, conducting regular product checks as part of this. We are looking to increase the technical transparency of our products, which means increasing the amount of specification data we have for each product. This will help to manage potential quality or safety issues. By 2025, we want 100% technical transparency covering all products, excluding A-brands. We achieved technical transparency in 2022 for all private labels. We also have full technical transparency for all articles bought through direct import. We are on track to achieve our goal by the end of 2025.
Over the past year, we developed a new product safety policy and compliance management system, and extended our Quality Assurance team to cover both quality assurance and sustainability. This team helps set quality standards throughout Action, takes part in product testing and investigates possible quality issues.
Number of product withdrawals for reasons of public safety
2023
2022
2021
We offer good quality products that are increasingly sustainable. As part of this, we strive to keep the number of product withdrawals and recalls to a minimum. In 2023, nine products had to be withdrawn from shelves because of public safety concerns, down from 11 the year before.
In May, we officially launched our web shop in Belgium following the successful growth of our Dutch web shop over the past two years. Our two web shops complement our physical stores in those countries. Products available online differ from those in our stores – often they are larger items like rugs, tools and garden furniture that customers prefer to have delivered to their homes.
*As measured by market research organisation GfK. The perceived price level measures customers’ perception of a product in relation to its price.
We will measure our performance by the score of our perceived price level*, and will develop and communicate our target in 2024.
Available and affordable products
We offer customers good quality everyday essentials and products that make daily life easier or more enjoyable at the lowest price.
With the cost-of-living crisis, we are seeing more demand for affordable daily necessities like washing powder, shampoo and toilet rolls. Because we buy in volume, we are able to offer products like these at the lowest prices. We also look to reduce prices where possible – by, for example, implementing smarter logistics solutions and making efficiencies where possible – passing on the resulting benefits to our customers. Over the summer, a reduction in raw material and transport costs enabled us to reduce prices across our product range. Products at price levels that we consider unacceptable are replaced by alternative brands or products. During the year, we maintained a very high level of product availability – thanks to efficient stock management and continued investment in our supply chain.
We offer the lowest price on our products
In May, we officially launched our web shop in Belgium following the successful growth of our Dutch web shop over the past two years. Our two web shops complement our physical stores in those countries. Products available online differ from those in our stores – often they are larger items like rugs, tools and garden furniture that customers prefer to have delivered to their homes.
We’re expanding the Action app. Now available in eight countries, it will be rolled out to three more in 2024: Austria, Poland and Italy. The app app was downloaded 5.3 million times in 2023 and provides customers with access to the Action loyalty programme, as well as information on products and promotions.
*We make sure that, at all times, we collect and use customer data responsibly and with consent. We only collect data that is strictly necessary for our business.
We are constantly looking for ways to improve our customers’ in-store experience. We assess customer preferences through regular polls and satisfaction surveys, as well as other touchpoints, including email, the Action app, our website and visits to Action stores. In doing so, we gather customer views on topics such as price and quality, and use this data to make improvements to our product range to reflect changing customer preferences and buying trends.*
We’re improving the Action shopping experience
While we offer products at the lowest prices, we work to limit how we affect the environment. In 2023, we made progress with our responsible sourcing programme, moved to more sustainable packaging and worked closely with our suppliers on upholding basic human and labour rights. We also introduced a new Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence policy.
*Including European Chemicals Agency standards and legislation in Hawaii, introduced in 2018, banning sunscreens with substances harmful to the marine environment.
Zenova Sensitive Sunmilk is just one example of how we’re working to make our products more sustainable. The sunscreen is micro-plastics free, vegan and coral reef friendly, according to international standards.* Zenova is also rich in vitamin E and comes in bottles and tubes made of at least 50% recycled plastic. Zenova has won several awards, including Best Buy, Best Test and Green Choice from the Dutch and Belgian Consumer Association.
We limit our impact on the world around us
Product quality and safety
We provide good quality products that are safe to use and comply with all quality and safety standards.
We have established preferred testing labs for all product categories, putting us on course to reach our target of 100% technical transparency by 2025.
2023
2022
2021
Number of product withdrawals for reasons of public safety
We offer good quality products that are increasingly sustainable. As part of this, we strive to keep the number of product withdrawals and recalls to a minimum. In 2023, nine products had to be withdrawn from shelves because of public safety concerns, down from 11 the year before.
We work to ensure that the products we sell are safe, of good quality and durable. We make sure we comply with all relevant safety and quality regulations, conducting regular product checks as part of this. We are looking to increase the technical transparency of our products, which means increasing the amount of specification data we have for each product. This will help to manage potential quality or safety issues. By 2025, we want 100% technical transparency covering all products, excluding A-brands. We achieved technical transparency in 2022 for all private labels. We also have full technical transparency for all articles bought through direct import. We are on track to achieve our goal by the end of 2025.
Over the past year, we developed a new product safety policy and compliance management system, and extended our Quality Assurance team to cover both quality assurance and sustainability. This team helps set quality standards throughout Action, takes part in product testing and investigates possible quality issues.