Can Coolblue’s second Walloon store shake up electronics retail in Charleroi?

Dutch electronics retailer Coolblue announced on 17 August 2026 that it will open a store in Gosselies, in the northern part of Charleroi, giving Wallonia its second Coolblue outlet after Hognoul near Liège. The company has confirmed the location and the expansion plan, but it has not yet publicly specified an opening date, exact address, floor area or number of jobs attached to the project.

For shoppers in Hainaut, the immediate significance is practical: Coolblue’s physical services, including product demonstrations, advice, order collection and after-sales support, will become available closer to Charleroi. The arrival will also add another large competitor to a well-established retail zone where Vanden Borre, Krëfel, MediaMarkt and Electro Dépôt already sell consumer electronics and household appliances.

Gosselies is geographically distinct from central Charleroi. It lies north of the city centre, close to the E42 and A54 motorways, Brussels South Charleroi Airport and the City Nord concentration of out-of-town shops. That makes the area accessible to customers travelling by car from across Hainaut and parts of Walloon Brabant, although Coolblue has not yet disclosed the precise site or its public-transport connections.

The decision follows a longer push into French-speaking Belgium. Coolblue launched its French-language Belgian web shop in 2017 and opened its first Walloon store at Shopping Hognoul in Awans in September 2024. When that project was presented, Coolblue Belgium manager Arne Van Verdegem said customers often had a product in mind but still wanted to experience it before buying. The Hognoul shop was designed around that proposition, combining more than 1,000 display products with online-order collection and service facilities, according to Coolblue’s announcement.

The Gosselies project turns an earlier ambition into a concrete location. In February 2026, Coolblue said it saw room for at least ten additional Belgian stores and specifically identified Charleroi among the cities it was considering. Van Verdegem described physical outlets as places where customers can assess qualities that are difficult to communicate online, such as a television’s picture or the sound of headphones. The company reported group revenue of €2.56 billion for 2025 across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, with Belgium accounting for about a quarter, according to company figures reported by the Belgian press.

This is not simply a return from online retail to traditional shops. Belgium’s FPS Economy defines omnichannel retail as the integration of websites, applications and physical points of sale into one customer journey. Coolblue’s model fits that description: the store serves partly as a showroom and service hub for transactions that may begin online. That matters in a country where 76% of people bought something online in 2024, above the EU average of 71.8%, according to the FPS Economy.

There is nevertheless a sharper competitive backdrop. Coolblue is adding shops while established Belgian electronics chain Krëfel has been restructuring parts of its network. The contrast supports Coolblue’s argument that selected physical locations can reinforce e-commerce, but it does not prove that the wider electronics-store market is expanding. Vanden Borre and Krëfel already operate in Gosselies, and neither company had issued a public response to Coolblue’s announcement at the time of writing.

For Charleroi and Wallonia, the eventual employment figure, accessibility of the chosen site and treatment of repairs and returns will be as important as the opening itself. The next milestones should be disclosure of the address, timetable, store size and recruitment plan. Until those details emerge, the announcement establishes Coolblue’s intention to deepen its Walloon presence, but not yet the full economic footprint of the Gosselies store.