Dutch consumers are discovering French online shops

Online shoppers from the Netherlands love to shop at ecommerce websites located in China and Germany, but last year there was a strongly increased interest in online shops from France and Spain. Dutch online shoppers spent 84 percent more in France last year than in comparison with 2016.

This is shown by the Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, research conducted by Dutch ecommerce association Thuiswinkel.org. China is still the biggest cross-border market for Dutch shoppers, as 30 percent of all online purchases that happened at foreign ecommerce sites, took place at Chinese online stores.

Neighboring country  Germany is the second most popular country for Dutch online shoppers, as 17 percent of Dutch cross-border spending happened at German online stores. The United Kingdom ranks third place, with a 14 percent share.

France and Spain are increasingly popular among Dutch shoppers

But what’s more interesting, is the fact France and Spain are becoming increasingly popular among Dutch shoppers. Spain still has a relatively low share of 4 percent, but has shown almost a doubling of Dutch cross-border spending. And France is also getting more and more popular, as its share increased by 84 percent compared to the situation in 2016.

817 million euros spent abroad

Research found out that almost three out of ten Dutch people (aged 15 years and older) did one or more purchases through foreign ecommerce websites. In total, 3.8 million cross-border shoppers in the Netherlands spent 817 million euros at foreign webshops last year. This means cross-border spending has shown a 28 percent increase compared to 2016.