Dutch e-commerce market is heading for annual revenue of € 25.7 billion in 2019

Food / Nearfood and Home & Garden strongest risers

Ede 4 July 2019 - In the first quarter of 2019, online consumer spending showed an increase of 8% compared to a year earlier. The online turnover thus comes to € 6.5 billion for that period. For the entire year, online spending is estimated at € 25.7 billion, which represents an increase of 8%. This is according to figures from the Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, the study into online consumer spending in the Netherlands. This research is conducted by GfK, commissioned by Thuiswinkel.org and in collaboration with PostNL.

The e-commerce turnover of the first three months can be divided into € 3.1 billion in services (+ 4% compared to Q1 2018) and € 3.4 billion in products (+ 11%). The latter category is mainly driven by online spending in Food / Nearfood and Home & Garden, now the two largest segments within online spending and the number of purchases. In the past period they experienced a strong growth in online spending per purchasing household, an increase in the number of online purchases per household and an increase in the number of online purchasing households.

Thanks in part to the strong growth in these categories, 61.2 million online purchases were made in the first quarter of this year, which means an increase of 8% compared to last year. Purchases of products increased by 9% to 48.6 million and services by 3% to 12.7 million.

Strong growth expected for the whole of 2019

Further growth of the online channel is predicted for the rest of the year. Online spending by Dutch consumers in 2019 is expected to grow by a total of 8% to € 25.7 billion. The number of online purchases will also increase. Dutch consumers are expected to make around 262 million online purchases this year (+ 8%).

"Once again we see a good increase in online consumer spending and purchases in Q1, and the prospects for the whole of 2019 also look good," says Wijnand Jongen, director of Thuiswinkel.org. “This growth naturally also has an impact on the environment, which is why we, as a branch of industry, do our utmost to limit the consequences as much as possible. For that reason, we have set up a sustainable initiative, Bewust Bezorgd, with the help of large web stores and logistics parties, with which the CO2 emissions can be calculated per parcel delivered and we can also inform consumers about the impact of their order. In this way the delivery can be arranged in such a way that the impact on the environment is limited. "

More online purchases via smartphone

In the first three months of 2019, 20% of online purchases went via mobile phone, compared to 14% in Q1 2018. In addition, the number of online buyers who purchase via a smartphone also grew: where in Q1 2018 30% of all online buyers made a purchase via a smartphone, this year has grown to 37%. On the other hand, the share of online purchases via a desktop has fallen from 34% to 31%. The most popular device remains the laptop, since about half of the online buyers have made an online purchase.

Download here the infographic of the Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor 2019 Q1