Benelux

SendCloud, a Dutch cloud-based shipping service for online stores, is starting a European delivery network, so online retailers can easily ship parcels across Europe. The company wants to revolutionize the logistics process in Europe, which is still being hampered by restrictive rules.

Albert Heijn and Jumbo are the biggest supermarket chains in the Netherlands, both offline and online. With ecommerce, Albert Heijn is the market leader for many years now, but according to Jumbo, that might change within the next five years. But the companies compete online in different ways.

Maternia, the biggest contact lens retailer in the Czech Republic, has expanded its online reach in Europe. The company opened its online store in Belgium, which is now the 15th country in Europe where Maternia is active.

One in five Dutch consumers who shop online used their smartphone to order something online at least once during the third quarter of this year. This means 2.17 million Dutch shopped online via their smartphone. One year ago, 14 percent of the Dutch online shoppers used their smartphone for ordering something online.

Online electrical retailer AO saw its revenue increase by 22.9 percent to 378 million euros during the period April to September this year. Ecommerce sales in the UK grew 20.8 percent, while revenue in Europe increased by 66.9 percent during that same period.

It seems that retailers in Luxembourg are still not keen on digitalization. Just 7 percent of tradespeople in this Western European country have an online shop for their goods or services. While other countries in Europe are embracing ecommerce, Luxembourg seems more reluctant.

The Dutch music store Bax Music is still growing and is looking to expand further across Europe. The company is already active in eight European countries, but its founders say they want to launch an online store of Bax Music in all European countries by 2021.

Dutch postal service PostNL has started a test with its parcel and letter machines in Almere, a city located in the center of the country. The machine contains a letterbox with two openings and several parcel lockers which can be used to send and receive parcels.

The Netherlands and Belgium have a combined population of 28 million people, a gross domestic product of 1.08 trillion euros and English is spoken widely. The two countries offer an attractive market to international retailers looking to expand into new territories. A new guidebook helps companies who want to sell online in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Payment service provider MultiSafepay will expand its payment methods with Electronic Payment Standard (EPS), an Austrian online transfer procedure, so it can focus more on the growth market in Austria. MultiSafepay sees potential for its customers and wants to offer them the opportunity to enter new markets.

Bol.com is, in terms of revenue, the biggest online retailer in the Netherlands. It generated an estimated revenue of 730 million euros in 2015, way more than local competitors such as Wehkamp and Coolblue. Together with Zalando and Amazon these companies form the top 5 of biggest ecommerce websites in the Netherlands.

Almost 1.6 million Dutch people already shopped for groceries online at least once and expectations are the 2 million milestone will be reached next year. This means that one in six Dutch will buy their groceries online in 2017. The total revenue of online supermarkets in the Netherlands is expected to increase by 30 percent.

Dutch lingerie retail chain Lincherie has opened a physical store in Amsterdam where customers won't be able to take some bras or bikinis with them. They can however get in a fitting room with a digital mirror where they can discover the correct bra size. Ordering products happens via a tablet, after which the products will be sent to the customer within 48 hours.

Online food delivery marketplace Takeaway.com has announced its intention to proceed with an initial public offering and listing on Euronext Amsterdam. The IPO is expected to take place in the coming weeks and will probably consist of newly issued shares and existing shares held by the current shareholders.

Bol.com, the biggest online store in the Netherlands, continued its strong performance and reported growth in net consumer sales again. Together with Dutch online grocer Ah.nl, both are owned by Ahold Delhaize, the online business showed more than 30 percent growth during the second quarter, compared to the same period last year.