Benelux

Bol.com is, again, the biggest online store in the Netherlands. Just like in 2016 and 2017, there is no online retailer with a bigger revenue to be found in the Western European country. Last year, the Ahold subsidiary generated 1.22 billion euros in online revenue.

German fashion retailer Edited keeps on expanding. The retail company has opened its latest online store in Belgium. The launch follows just one month after the German company opened its digital doors in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has the most online stores per capita. In this country, there are about 80,000 online stores with a population of 17 million. That means there are 214 people per online store, a density that's nowhere to be found anywhere else in the world. In the Netherlands, online shops have to fight hard for every visitor.

Bol.com, the popular Dutch online department store, made some changes to its paid Select model. Subscribers will now get free delivery on all products, regardless of the order value. Previously, Bol.com Select offered free delivery only on 300.000 selected products.

Cdiscount Marketplace is busy expanding outside of France. The online marketplace now also delivers some items to Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain. This means, the 10,000 connected sellers suddenly get access to a new 200 million customer base.

Belgian postal company Bpost has raised 650 million euros. The transaction will serve to refinance the acquisition of Radial Holdings it completed in November of last year. Bpost is more and more becoming a full ecommerce logistics company.

Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is currently experimenting with a smart door lock, so groceries can be delivered to a customer's place, even when the customer isn't at home. The test is part of Albert Heijn Online Labs, which invents and develops new concepts to improve the supermarket's service.

The business-to-consumers ecommerce turnover of Belgium is still increasing, with a 12 percent year-on-year growth rate this year. This would mean ecommerce in Belgium will be worth 11.84 billion euros at the end of this year.

During the first three months of this year, 7.4 million Belgians made 23 million purchases online. While doing this, they spent 2.73 billion euros, which is an increase of 12 percent compared to the same period last year.

Loberon, an online furniture store from Germany, has launched a dedicated ecommerce website in the Netherlands. The launch marks the third time the German retailer opened an online store abroad, after starting operations in Austria and Switzerland.

The popular Dutch payment method iDeal performed well last year. The number of payments with iDeal has increased by 33.8 percent during that period, which is a growth the method hasn't seen since 2011. More and more foreign online stores are now offering iDeal to Dutch customers.

Adyen, a major Dutch company that processes payments for companies such as Airbnb, Uber, Spotify and Netflix, confirmed it plans to list its shares publicly in Amsterdam. The company announced it will go public on the Euronext stock market next month.

Five online retailers from Belgium have created a new shopping event, called Belgian Friday. According to the organizers, this day is meant as a local answer to Black Friday. Belgian Friday will take place this Friday and the discounts last until the Monday after Pentecost, which is an official holiday in many European countries.

Ecommerce is becoming an increasingly important revenue factor for Dutch postal company PostNL. Revenue derived from ecommerce logistics now accounts for 42 percent of the company's total turnover. Last year, this share was 34 percent.

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.