The Netherlands

Dutch online payment processor Mollie is gearing up for expansion throughout Europe in order to become the first tech-driven European payment service provider. After achieving success in its home country the Netherlands and neighboring country Belgium, Mollie has now established new teams in France and Germany.

Online shopping via a smartphone or tablet continues to increase in popularity in the Netherlands. The number of online purchases that happened using the smartphone, grew 68 percent compared to 2015. Now, 9 percent of online purchases in the Netherlands happen via the smartphone, while the tablet accounts for 14 percent.

Picnic, an online-only supermarket operating in selected cities in the Netherlands, has raised 100 million euros in funding from NPM Capital, De Hoge Dennen, Hoyberg and Finci. With the money, Picnic wants to further expand across the country.

Just Cargo, a Dutch startup that calls itself the Uber for courier services, wants to expand in Europe. With franchisees in other countries, the company wants to link companies and drivers across Europe to pick up and deliver parcels.

A new study on omnichannel in the European fashion industry shows that social media, online customer loyalty and store localization are the most common omni-channel solutions. The least common features are online order of in-store inventory with in-store pick-up by the customer, same-day delivery and shipping and in-store reservation of inventory for in-store consumer purchases.

DHL Express has launched a pilot project in Germany and the Netherlands, in which it uses cargo bicycles for inner-city deliveries. The two pilots of the City Hub concept launched in Frankfurt, Germany's fifth largest city, and Utrecht, a major Dutch city that wants to become climate-neutral by 2030.

After DPD Germany entered the food delivery service in Germany, Dutch postal company PostNL is following suit in the Netherlands. Starting next month, the company will deliver frozen meals and groceries every day of the week.

At the end of this year, online retailer VidaXL will have the biggest distribution center in the Netherlands. In Venlo, a place in the most southern part of the country, a completely new international distribution center will arise that can manage 60,000 orders per day. The distribution center is part of VidaXL's international growth strategy, just like welcoming external vendors in its online store.

Online fashion search platform Fashiola will expand further across Europe. Last year, the Dutch website already expanded its presence from five to fifteen countries, but this year the company wants to launch in ten extra countries.

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.

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.