The Netherlands

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.

Two Dutch companies have joined forces to explore the use of drones to deliver packages to smart, internet-connected mailboxes. This way, there's no mailman needed and the customer doesn't need to be at home at the time of delivery.

The online Dutch fashion store Winkelstraat.nl has launched an international website, which at the moment delivers to 24 countries across Europe. The English-written website Boutique24.com delivers the high-end fashion items to customers in one to three business days.

Dutch food-order company Takeaway.com has sold its British website to its competitor Just Eat. The news follows just a few weeks after Takeaway.com acquired the Benelux businesses from Just Eat. Both companies couldn't get a grip of the local market: Takeaway.com had trouble conquering the UK, while its presence was too strong in the Netherlands and Belgium for Just Eat to compete there.

During the last two years, 15.9 percent of the households in the Netherlands have bought their groceries online at least once. Almost half of these households bought their foods and drinks online more than once. This segment accounted for 80 percent of the total online revenue generated by supermarkets.

A robotic arm from the Delft University of Technology has won a bot competition organized by Amazon. The Dutch machine beat two teams from Japan and five from the US, countries better known for their robotics search.

It seems like Dutch retailers have embraced Google Shopping as an important advertising channel. Last year, this industry more than tripled the budget spend on Google Shopping. The share of paid search advertising on Google Shopping increased from 6 percent in 2014 to 23 percent last year.

Dutch shoe manufacturer Floris van Bommel was already active in Germany for several years now, but since last February it also has an online store in Germany. To grow further in the German ecommerce market, Floris van Bommel has now partnered with online marketing company Fingerspitzengefühl.

Lidl has opened an online store in the Netherlands. Dutch consumers are now able to order all kinds of non-food products, such as fashion, tools, home accessories and  kitchen tools & gadgets via Lidl-shop.nl.  The German discount supermarket wants to expand its online assortment in stages.