Ecommerce in Belgium

While Belgium is situated near countries with strong ecommerce markets such as Germany, France and the Netherlands, the online market is still quite small in this country. In recent years, the Belgian government has implemented new laws to make the country more attractive for online stores.

Content:

• Ecommerce events in Belgium
• Ecommerce customers in Belgium
• The ecommerce market in Belgium
• Big online stores in Belgium
• Latest ecommerce news from or about Belgium

Ecommerce events in Belgium

Every year there are several ecommerce events that take place in Belgium. We have a handy ecommerce events calendar where you can find all the major online retail events in Europe.

Ecommerce customers in Belgium

Belgian customers prefer to use local payment method Bancard or the credit card when they need to pay for their online purchases. Research from BeCommerce in 2018 shows that Bancontact was used for 68 percent of all online purchases and for 30 percent of the money spent online. A more recent study shows that Bancontact was used in 45 percent of all online purchases during the fourth quarter of 2020. The second most popular payment method in Belgium is the credit card.

Bancard is the most popular payment method.

Clothing and shoes are amongst the most popular products purchased online. About six in ten Belgians have bought online at least once, one in four Belgians order products online on a monthly basis. Almost half of Belgian consumers prefer ordering from a shop in the region or one they already know.

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The ecommerce market in Belgium

It is relatively hard for an online merchant operating in Belgium to conquer the hearts of all its inhabitants, as the country is deeply divided into two parts: Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. In Western Europe, Belgium was relatively late with embracing ecommerce.

Online turnover increased 22% from 2021 to 2022.

In 2022, the total online turnover in the country was 14.7 billion euros. This was a growth of 22 percent compared to a year earlier. According to BeCommerce, at least 8.5 million Belgians shopped online in 2022.

Strict rules in Belgium

In February 2022, the Belgian government announced that it was considering labor market reform measures. The reforms would enable ecommerce businesses to work between 20:00 and midnight. This would give the ecommerce market the opportunity to catch up with other countries, where night work is already allowed. In July that year, the law was changed an night work is now allowed in Belgium.

Belgium is missing out on 1 billion euros a year.

According to research by employer’s organization Federation of Belgian Enterprises, Belgium is currently missing out on 1 billion euros and 6,000 jobs a year. Due to the strict rules, online retailers do not get enough chances to grow into large ecommerce businesses. This is why there are currently no national players competing with giants such as Bol.com and Amazon.

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Big online stores in Belgium

There are some big online players from abroad, like Zalando (Germany) or Bol.com and Coolblue (both from the Netherlands). As a matter of fact, in 2017, the whole top five of biggest online stores in Belgium consisted of foreign players. But there are also a few big Belgian online retailers, like Vente-Exclusive, Vanden Borre, ZEB, Schoenen Torfs and Bel&Bo.

Read all our articles about ecommerce in Belgium.