Audax
Audax, founded in 1958, is a prominent player in retail, publishing and commercial distribution, operating through divisions such as Audax Retail, Audax Publishing, Van Ditmar and Betapress. Audax Retail includes well-known brands like Bruna and ReadShop, serving more than 500 owned and franchise stores alongside over 4,000 other retailers, from Bruna and ReadShop to outlets at Schiphol, train stations and Bijenkorf bookstores.
The challenge
Audax needed a point-of-sale payment contract that worked for two different audiences at once: its own Bruna branches and its independent franchisees. That is a structurally harder problem than a single-merchant negotiation, because the volumes, interests and priorities of franchisees and owned stores do not automatically align, and a deal has to be favourable for all parties to be worth signing.
The approach
EcomStream guided Audax through the full evaluation: weighing proposals from payment providers and banks, assessing the different deal structures on the table, and reviewing the terms and conditions behind each. The goal was a single arrangement that held up across both the owned branches and the franchise network.
A central part of the work was education. EcomStream gave Audax's stakeholders a clear view of the Dutch payment landscape and how it actually works, so the decisions were made with genuine understanding rather than on a provider's say-so.
The outcome
Audax secured a favourable point-of-sale payment contract covering both its Bruna branches and its franchisees, with stakeholders who understood the market well enough to proceed with confidence. A complex, multi-party negotiation ended in an arrangement that worked for everyone involved.
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