The Netherlands

More than eight in ten Dutch people bought online in the first half of this year, a record. Especially for personal care products, medicines and vitamin pills, more consumers went online.

According to Eurostat figures, 58.1 percent of all consumers in the European Union made a recent online purchase last year. Ecommerce is most established in the Netherlands and least in Bulgaria. In many parts of Southeast Europe, adoption remains below 35 percent.

Shopify now supports payouts in multiple currencies for European merchants. For many larger online retailers, this eliminates a key reason to operate multiple stores simultaneously or opt for alternative ecommerce software.

AliExpress and Shein are among the ten largest online sellers in the Netherlands. And behind market leader bol comes, not Albert Heijn or Coolblue, but Amazon as the number two. That is according to a new ranking by German ECDB, a well-known publisher of ecommerce statistics. What is the ranking based on? And what else stands out?

The Netherlands has more than 100,000 online stores. This figure comes from the latest quarterly report from Statistics Netherlands. At least this number of companies have online sales as their main activity, but the number is increasing. The amount of online stores with a broad product range increased 14 percent last year.

This week, fulfillment company Monta has announced further international expansion. The company will open fulfillment centers in France, Italy and Poland. The new locations will be operational by this time next year.

Unlike most European countries, local players generate the most online revenue in the Netherlands. The top 3 in online spending for 2023 is led by online department store bol. Supermarket chain Albert Heijn, a sister company of bol, takes second place, and electronics retailer Coolblue is in third. Amazon rises in the new ranking and claims fourth place.

Nine out of ten Dutch employers in ecommerce are missing digital skills among the people who work for them. Especially in the areas of cybersecurity and innovative technologies, the shortcomings are significant. Employers expect that in the coming years, it will remain difficult to keep up with the development pace of AI.

In the first half of 2024, Dutch consumers spent €17.5 billion on online retail, a 6% increase compared to the same period in 2023, although the number of products purchased declined. The growth mainly stems from services, such as health and damage insurance.

This week, the list of the 30 fastest-growing Dutch cross-border sellers was announced at the CrossBorder Event in Utrecht. Jewelry brand Notbranded landed in first place, followed by Cloudpillo and Wristler.

The majority of Dutch online stores that sell products through dropshipping do not comply with legal regulations for online selling. Their websites lack contact details or information about returning orders, for example.

Online revenue in the Netherlands is expected to increase 8 percent this year, compared to 2023. Meanwhile, the total retail revenue will increase only 2 percent. This is due to an expected decline in supermarket sales, because of a ban on selling tobacco in those stores.

Online marketplace Bol has launched several updates this month. One of the updates is a new advertising option that allows sellers to highlight their brand and assortment in search results. There are also changes to the partner platform and review policy.

No country in the world has as many internet users shopping online as the Netherlands, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The ecommerce penetration rate is 84 percent. At least four out of five internet users in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark also shop online.

At least 95.8 percent of European consumers shopped online in the first quarter of this year. In the United Kingdom, that percentage was 93 percent. And in the Netherland, 96 percent of consumers shopped online.