The Death of a Retailer: Leen Bakker, Crushed Between IKEA and Action

By Kadir Duran / Bruxelles Korner

The news lands like a hammer blow: Leen Bakker is disappearing from the Belgian market.
A chain that had become a familiar presence across the country collapses abruptly, unable to withstand the pressure of retail giants. Out of 44 stores, only 15 have been taken over.
Behind the darkened storefronts and silenced signs, 270 workers now face shattered routines, uncertain futures sometimes broken lives.

The fall of a retailer trapped between two giants

Leen Bakker’s downfall was not accidental.
It was the predictable fate of a brand caught between:

IKEA, a global machine optimised, industrial, unbeatable on logistics and price
Action, the unstoppable low-cost juggernaut draining households’ budgets for home goods and decor

The mid-range market has simply been wiped out.
Too expensive to compete with Action.
Too weak to stand against IKEA.
Leen Bakker stood in the worst possible place… at the worst possible time.

A business model collapsing in silence

The company failed to modernise:

digital experience almost nonexistent,
outdated stores,
margins crushed by rising energy and supply chain costs,
no capacity to follow the tempo set by retail superpowers.

The verdict was unavoidable: a structurally unsustainable business model.

Belgian retail is undergoing a harsh, quiet mutation.
And Leen Bakker is likely not the last victim.

Workers: once again, the first to be sacrificed

Behind the numbers, the empty shopfronts and the “permanent closure” signs, there are real people.
Sales assistants, managers, warehouse staff, delivery drivers , families now thrown into uncertainty.

Even in the stores that will be taken over, not all employees will be transferred.
The 270 “at risk” are, in reality, 270 disrupted trajectories, 270 lives suddenly shaken.

Leen Bakker is not an isolated case. It is a warning.

The disappearance of a long-standing retail brand reflects more than internal management issues.
It reveals a market where only giants survive, where margins vanish, where hybrid models die, and where competition becomes so fierce that it turns fatal.

Belgian retail is entering a red zone.
And the collapse of Leen Bakker is only the first strong signal of a deeper crisis.