Market size of e-commerce in the Netherlands 2005-2021

The Netherlands’ e-commerce market grew by nearly 16 percent in 2021 when compared to 2020. That year, Dutch consumers spent roughly 30.6 billion euros on online purchases and orders. This makes the country the seventh-largest e-commerce market in Europe in absolute terms and online shopping made up more than three percent of their GDP. Consequently, around 373 million online purchases were made by 14 million buyers.

COVID-19 to increase online purchases further

Unsurprisingly, the use of e-commerce in the Netherlands increased since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the country. Survey information from May 2020 revealed that all product categories saw an increase in online sales during lockdown. Interestingly, this increase is believed to persist in the future once COVID-19 has passed. Dutch consumers especially show an intention to keep buying hardware and tools online, whereas fashion is predicted to stay at the same level as it was before the pandemic. Online medication and online grocery shopping are also to see an increase but are believed to still play a relatively marginal role in Dutch e-commerce.

Online performance of supermarkets

Before the coronavirus hit the Netherlands, its market size for online grocery shopping was believed to have stabilized at roughly one billion euros at the end of 2019. This according to survey results. The same source behind this survey revealed that the revenue generated by supermarkets online increased significantly to 2.2 billion euros as of June 2021.