Last year, Belgian e-commerce grew by 33 %: purchasing online has become a habit, but one category is the big winner: “Food has profited most in 2021.”
Spectacular
All Belgian webshops combined managed to raise their turnover by a third to 11.7 billion euros, despite the strong base of comparison being the first Covid-year, 2020. The number of transaction rose by 40 % to 150 million, while the average order remained stable at 78 euros. To be clear: these are sales by Belgian webshops, so including foreign customers – but excluding purchases made by Belgians on foreign webshops. Sales by Belgian webshops on international platforms (like Amazon or bol.com) are also not included.
Greet Dekocker, director at Safeshops.be (whose sixth E-Commerce Barometer includes these figures), says “This is spectacular, much more than I had expected myself.” Part of that growth is attributed to a delay in certain sectors, who were not able to profit fully from the fact that in 2020 too, Belgians have “discovered how easy it is to buy online”: Dekocker names examples like travels and events.
Major contributors
Last year saw the creation of 8500 new webshops in Belgium: a slower growth than in the record-breaking 2020 (with 20,000 new webshops), but still an important sign that online growth has not had a setback after such a huge record. However, Belgian webshops are mostly quite small: only 275 online players have a turnover of ten million euros or more, but together they are good for two thirds (7.8 billion euros) of Belgium’s online sales.
Safeshops.be still sees room for growth for Belgian webshops: not only in the French-speaking south of the country, where e-commerce penetration has always been slower, but also abroad. Cross-border sales now represents a fifth of total turnover, with most income coming from neighbours France (38.44 %), the Netherlands (37.57 %) and Germany (10.96 %). Brexit did, however, cause a fall in Belgian online sales in the United Kingdom.
Potential growth is most present in Germany, Dekocker says: “With a distinctive product range, even a smaller Belgian webshop can really carve out a market for itself.” Baby webshop De Gele Flamingo has proven as much, with a strong start in Germany. Recently, fashion label Xandres also decided to take a gamble and start a German webshop, on top of an offline (wholesale) expansion.
Food wins
If she has to name one sector that has really benefited from Covid, Dekocker names food: “We have seen numerous new initiatives, like the arrival of flash-deliveries (Gorillas) and Belgium’s first online-only supermarket Hopr. Meal platforms, too, saw a huge growth in transactions. If you put all these trends together, the evolution is spectacular: food certainly is the biggest winner of 2021.”
This is also supported by the development of logistical solutions: people want their food delivered in the evening, when they are at home. They want to eat their meals while they are still warm, and put the groceries in the fridge straight away. This is now – finally – made possible.”
General conclusion? “The numbers are far better than expected. I had hoped for growth, but forty million transactions is a big deal. If the war in Ukraine finds a peaceful resolution soon, I think we can repeat the same level of growth again this year.”
