Leeuwarder Courant article: 'Buying stock every day'
- (https://kooistra.com/2025/12/16/)
# Eric and Tjitse bought 202 shipping containers of Blokker goods. Where do things stand now?
René Smid • 13-12-2025 • Economy
Tjitse Lawerman (left) and Eric Kooistra in the Kooistra.com warehouse on the Apolloweg in Leeuwarden. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
Eric Kooistra and Tjitse Lawerman, both from Dokkum, never lost their inner child. Every day at Kooistra.com in Leeuwarden they ‘play shop’, buying and selling hundreds of thousands of items a year. “We don’t necessarily have to make a profit on every item.”
“Another bit earned,” says Eric Kooistra (47). He and his business partner Tjitse Lawerman (49), the photographer and the journalist are about to walk to the warehouse when a Polish lorry driver knocks on the door. Would Kooistra like to buy three Euro pallets, because he has no room left for them.
Kooistra politely declines, since what would he do with just three pallets, but tells the driver he can leave the pallets with him anyway. Well, that brings in a few pennies too. “We can’t do anything with a few pallets, we would rather have a full trailer,” Kooistra explains. It shows the entrepreneurial drive of the man from Dokkum, who buys and sells surplus stock under the company name Kooistra.com together with his childhood friend Tjitse Lawerman.
The bad publicity caused by the bankruptcy of the bargain chain Big Bazar also affected Eric Kooistra and his company. He even had a notice placed on his own website saying that this Kooistra, unlike Eric’s cousin Jerke, did pay his bills. “It did cost us money,” says Kooistra. “A firm in Amsterdam wants to sell a stock and sees the name Kooistra in the paper every day. So they don’t call. We also had people on the phone saying: you still have bills to pay. Well, that wasn’t us.”
Last December, Eric Kooistra and Tjitse Lawerman appeared in the national media with a remarkable story: they bought 202 shipping containers full of retail goods from the bankrupt Blokker “for a few million euros”. The containers were unloaded in Heerenveen and the stock is still in Harlingen, Heerenveen and Leeuwarden, where the company has warehouses.
“We had eighteen days to unload everything,” Lawerman says at a table in the stock buyer’s showroom. “We needed a lot of people for that. We turned it into little competitions, put four containers at the dock and then saw who emptied theirs first.”
By now almost half of the Blokker stock has been sold again, mostly to franchisees of the chain and also to Roland Palmer, who breathed new life into Blokker. “Actually, the Blokker deal didn’t even come at a good time for us,” Kooistra says, looking back on the big deal. “We had little money when the opportunity came along and borrowed money from business friends. Going through the bank took too long. In trading, you buy today and pay tomorrow.”
Trading runs in the Kooistra family. As early as 1935, grandfather Heerke Kooistra visited houses in and around Damwâld with a cargo bike, known as the dubbeltjeskar (the dime cart), to sell goods.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Dirk Kooistra, Eric’s father, bought up goods from the factories still standing in East Germany and sold them on in Western Europe. “As teenagers we often went along,” says Eric Kooistra. “You quickly understand how trading works. We worked hard and lived next to the business in Dokkum.”
At 23, Kooistra took over half of the shares in the company and ten years later he became sole owner. Lawerman also worked at the firm and at some point became its director. He now owns half of Kooistra.com. The company was based in Dokkum for many years and moved to Leeuwarden in 2010.
Back to the present, because what exactly do the two of them do? In itself it is quite simple: buy lots cheaply and sell them on, hopefully at a small profit. They also call themselves opportunity buyers. When a company goes bankrupt, or wants to get rid of a large load of goods for another reason, stock buyers come into the picture. They negotiate with the seller and hope to acquire a large quantity of stock at a low price.
One example is an online retailer from Limburg. “A big player with a wide range,” says Kooistra. “They were taken over by another company, which didn’t find a large part of the range interesting. We recently bought that. It is a thousand pallets and 35 lorries full of goods that have to be gone within a month. Working that out and organising it is what we enjoy most.”
On the spot, Lawerman had already sold on five lorries, including luggage sets and barbecues. “That is pure profit if you can drive it straight from there to Poland, Romania or the Czech Republic. It saves a trip to Friesland.”
> I do a deal every day
Kooistra and Lawerman have customers all over the world and have already sold to more than seven thousand different companies. “I do a deal every day,” says Lawerman. To illustrate, he shows a conversation on his phone with a customer who reported early in the morning that he has a trade lot worth 1 million euros. “I’ll call him back later, we’re doing the interview now.”
Ice skates are part of the range too. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
Although the conversation takes place in relative calm, that doesn’t mean the stock buyers are missing nothing. Messages and calls keep pouring in. At the end of a normal working day, both have missed between thirty and forty phone calls.
Kooistra still has 50,000 emails and 248 WhatsApp messages unanswered. “You never get through it,” he sighs. “People also send messages by text, LinkedIn and even Instagram. I never look at that. And Germans send voice messages, which you then have to listen to. Sometimes I would like to skip sleeping at night, because there is never enough time.”
> We have no rules here
Ideally the two would spend all their time buying and selling goods. Customers who initially buy half a lorry load of items are often persuaded to take a full trailer. Often with a small discount on other products. Kooistra: “You know nobody drives off with a half-empty trailer. So a bit less margin then. We have no rules here and don’t necessarily have to make a profit on every item.”
Ten people work at Kooistra.com. When large lots are bought, the owners also bring in agency staff to process everything. The company’s turnover fluctuates and amounts to between 5 and 10 million euros a year. Kooistra: “They’re not figures that make the headlines, but in this low-price trade that is fine.”
They won’t say anything about profit. “If it’s two hundred thousand, we’re doing something wrong,” says Lawerman. “But you shouldn’t expect 2 million euros either. We have to earn it here by the penny.”
At set times of the year those pennies also come in through the outlet shops owned by Kooistra.com. These are the Maxx shops in Dokkum and Leeuwarden that open now and then. At hefty discounts, ranging from 30 to 70 percent, customers can buy all sorts of goods there.
These temporary shops, often open for a few months, started in 1998. “We fill those shops with stock, and when there’s a good offer again, we do it again,” says Lawerman.
The Maxx outlets were founded in 1998. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
It is high time to take a look at that range in the 8,000 square metre warehouse on the Apolloweg. Because what is actually in there? Far too much to list.
On the company’s website you can download a catalogue of more than a hundred pages. There are, for example, almost 50,000 Pritt glue rollers, tens of thousands of greeting cards, 75,000 face masks, 60,000 kettlebells, thousands of cooking pans, hundreds of bicycles and 51,897 units of glitter paint. Or 5,394 gift bags from the film franchise _Star Wars_(The Force Awakens).
What will they do with them? Sometimes the pair don’t know straight away themselves, but there is a buyer for everything. And those face masks will sell too, even though the coronavirus pandemic has long since blown over.
Kooistra and Lawerman show an immense hall filled with thousands upon thousands of boxes. There are millions of products in the hall. And that is far from everything, because a great deal more is stored in Harlingen and Heerenveen.
The Kooistra.com warehouse on the Apolloweg in Leeuwarden is packed with goods. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
Another striking product is almost 150,000 soft toys from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Dated, you might think, but children are certainly happy with them. You will also find motor oil, cups, glasses, Christmas decorations, work gloves, ski goggles, towels, LED candles, cushions and slippers in the warehouse. The list is endless.
Quantities vary, says Kooistra. But they do want at least one pallet of everything. “But sometimes you also have a million units of one item. We don’t pay much, but we do make sure the selling party is no longer burdened with the goods. We once bought lingerie from Hunkemöller, but weren’t allowed to sell it in countries where they operate. So we went to Curaçao with 100,000 pieces of lingerie.”
Kooistra.com bought more than 100,000 soft toys made for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
There is so much that they sometimes forget what’s there. They have to force themselves to clear out the corners nobody ever visits. And now and then products sit for a long time until they suddenly come back into fashion. Kooistra once bought 44 trailers of loom bands, rubber bands for making bracelets.
“It had been a craze item and afterwards nobody wanted it. We paid 2,000 euros per trailer and six months later the craze took off in another country. We were able to sell it at a good profit. That customer was pleased, because nobody else had the product yet. Because we work in an unusual way, we sometimes get lucky.”
The interview isn’t over yet, but Kooistra has to leave. It is 10.20 and he is actually due in Dokkum at 10.30. He excuses himself and gets into the car.
> That might be nice for your piece too
Lawerman drops back into a chair in the showroom and talks about plans to open a mini retail chain. The temporary outlets work so well that they want to open more of them.
Kooistra.com is working on a 2,500 square metre shop in Assen and wants to open it from Wednesday to Saturday. That gives the company time on Monday and Tuesday to decide what goes into the shop that week.
“So the range changes all the time. We enjoy that too. Every week the game starts again. If it goes well, we might open ten of those Maxx shops. Retail is good fun. Would you like to see the shop in Leeuwarden? It happens to be open now.”
Lawerman leads the way to the Cambuurplein, where Maxx opened its doors in the former Aldi on the last weekend of November. The announcement was made on social media and customers flocked there. Lawerman walks through the shop beaming and shows a number of products.
“And now I have to go too,” he says. “I’m going to Hanover to have a look at a new lot of textiles and shoes myself.” Laughing: “That might be nice for your piece too. It shows how busy we are.”
Kooistra.com also stocks Christmas products. Photo: Hoge Noorden/Jaap Schaaf
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