Below you’ll find all the articles we’ve written about ecommerce, online retailers, acquisitions, cross-border initiatives and more that takes place in the Benelux: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. If you want to know more about this region’s online retail industry, check out our information page on ecommerce in Benelux.
Dutch marketplace Bol is introducing ‘a completely new ecosystem category’: third-party fulfillment, or 3PL for short. The market leader is looking for logistics companies that can help partner sellers with warehouse space and processing orders. Currently, sellers can only outsource fulfillment to Bol itself, but soon they will also be able to outsource to other fulfillment companies within the network.
Product discovery still mostly happens on marketplaces, with 37 percent of consumers starting their shopping journey there. Compared to last year, this is a decrease of 10 percent. Social platforms and AI assistants have increased their share in the last 12 months.
The adoption of ecommerce varies widely across European regions: from 21.7 percent in Yugoiztochen, in the southeast of Bulgaria, to 91.5 percent in the Dutch province of Utrecht. A new map from statistics agency Eurostat clearly visualizes these differences.
Temu has recently entered into a large number of partnerships with logistics service providers for the delivery of products across Europe. This week, deals with the United Kingdom’s Royal Mail and Belgium’s bpost were announced.
Only three years after launching a dedicated online store for Belgium, Amazon has grown into the country’s second-largest online retailer. The company is investing heavily in Belgium. Part of the investment is going toward same-day delivery from Amazon’s distribution center in Hoboken, near Antwerp.
Earlier this year, the amount of online stores in the Netherlands decreased for the first time since 2013. Growth now seems to be back on track, according to new figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Nearly three thousand companies were added in six months. Online selling is more popular than ever, especially among self-employed professionals.
Cainiao, the logistics subsidiary of Alibaba Group, will not move forward with its planned expansion at Liège Airport in Belgium. Two new warehouses that were on the drawing board will not be built, dealing a blow to Wallonia’s ambition to turn Liège into an ecommerce logistics hotspot.
Amazon will invest more than 1.4 billion euros in the Dutch market over the next three years. Earlier this month, the company also announced an injection of more than 1 billion euros in Belgium. The American company aims to win over shoppers and online buyers across the Benelux region in its battle with local market leader bol.
On average, online sellers are active on six different marketplaces. As 63 percent of consumers prefer marketplaces over brand sites, sellers need to make sure that their products are present there. However, selling on marketplaces comes with its own challenges as well.
Amazon is investing over one billion euros in the Belgian market over the next three years. The American company aims to improve the customer experience for Belgian shoppers and help small and medium-sized businesses grow both domestically and internationally.
Large international online platforms have grown rapidly in the Netherlands in recent years. However, local players still dominate the market. According to the latest Twinkle100, AliExpress, Shein and Temu are not among the ten largest online retailers in the country. Far from it. Amazon has also taken a step back, in both turnover and ranking.
The Belgian government is considering introducing a levy on parcels imported from outside the European Union. The 2 euro fee per parcel would affect Chinese online retailers such as AliExpress, Shein and Temu. The government intends to use the revenue to help reduce the national budget deficit.
In the first half of the year, consumers in the Netherlands spent more than 17 billion euros online. Compared to the same period last year, this represents a decline of 1 percent. Spending on services fell sharply, while spending on products increased slightly.
ECDB presents a new ranking of the Dutch ecommerce market, based on gross merchandise value per domain name. The top 10 includes four Dutch and three Chinese players. What is striking is that the latter are growing much faster. We were given a preview.
After 46 years, Otto is pulling the plug on its unprofitable operations in the Netherlands. Unlike in its home market in Germany, Otto’s promising marketplace model never took off in the neighbouring country. The decision will impact around 70 employees.