Less than 10k revenue for half of Dutch online stores

Although the majority of Dutch web merchants think their online store will be still active in 2020, but practice proves otherwise. Almost half of Dutch online entrepreneurs have had a revenue smaller than 10,000 euros in 2012. About 80% have never even earned an average income with their online store.

These results come from a survey held by Shopping2020, a research programme initiated by the Dutch home shopping association Thuiswinkel.org. They surveyed 500 online entrepreneurs from four different categories: spare time entrepreneurs, part-time entrepreneurs, fulltime entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who run a business with a partner.

One in three spare time entrepreneurs, who run an online store next to their fulltime job or study, told the researchers they have never made any profit from their online store. This percentage is 38% amongst part-time entrepreneurs, while 15% of the fulltime entrepreneurs and 20% of the entrepreneurs sharing a business never made any profit from their online stores.

(Note: the gross average income in the Netherlands in 2013 was about €33,000)

The survivability of online store owners is relatively small. After four years, only 41% of the online stores started are still active, while this percentage is 59% in the total industry. According to Jesse Weltrevreden, one of the researchers, it’s not surprising a huge amount of online store owners stop with selling online in less than four years, given the fact that more than half of Dutch online store owners aren’t operating their business on a fulltime basis. “An online store is often just a hobby for someone and the profits coming from it are just extra income.”

“Furthermore, many entrepreneurs invest little money and time into their online stores, so you might say a large number of online store owners doesn’t have any ambitions to gain some serious income out of a store. If you want to do that, you have to work on it fulltime and you should invest some serious money”, Weltevreden says.