Dutch online shoppers buy mainly in Dutch webshops: the share of foreign e-commerce players is barely 16%, the lowest market share in Europe.
The importance of local players
Last year, Dutch consumers spent an amount of 4.8 billion euros in foreign webshops. The cross-border market share is only 15.9%. This is remarkably low compared to other European countries. The main reason is the large offer of strong Dutch webshops, such as Bol.com, Coolblue, Wehkamp and AH. Zalando is the favourite cross-border online fashion platform of the Dutch.
This appears from new research by Cross-Border Commerce Europe, the platform that stimulates cross-border e-commerce in Europe. Europeans are increasingly shopping online across borders: in 2021, the European online cross-border market represented a turnover of 171 billion euros (excluding travel), an increase of 17% compared to 2020.
Luxembourgers cross the border
In contrast, more than 80% of the people in Luxembourg make online purchases in foreign webshops. This is due to the fact that Luxembourg is small and has few strong local players, while a very large percentage of the population is active online. Frequently visited cross-border webshops are Bader.de, Maisondumonde.com, Next.lu, Hunkemöller.lu, Rueducommerce, Alternate, Maxitoys and Zooplus. 40% of purchases are clothes, shoes and accessories.
Belgians shopped for 5.5 billion euro at foreign webshops last year, an increase of 37.5% compared to 2020. Cross-border purchases now have a 35.5% market share. Popular webshops are those of Zalando, Zara, H&M, Amazon, Wish, Shein, AliExpress and of course the Dutch Bol.com and Coolblue. This puts Belgium in fifth place in the top 16 in Europe.
Germany is e-commerce champion
The United Kingdom dropped 10 positions in the rankings as a result of the Brexit. Sales went down 12% and landed at 29 billion euros. British customers are losing confidence in cross-border trade (-35%). For e-commerce sellers, Brexit means more taxes, but also rising shipping costs, delivery delays, new regulations and more paperwork.
So which European countries have the strongest international webshops? Germany is e-commerce champion, thanks to Zalando in the first place, but also Schwarz Group (Lidl) and About You. Sweden also has strong cross-border webshops. Especially the brands of the H&M group are popular. The Netherlands is in third place, with Euronics, Vistaprint (Cimpress) and Philips (Signify) as the strongest players.
