Dutch online sales up 16% in May

According to CBS, retail trade in the Netherlands in May was up 9.7% in value and 9.3% in volume compared to May 2020. Compared to May 2019, retail sales in May 2021 were up 19.2%.

Online sales in May were up 16% from the same period last year, with online stores (where internet sales are the main activity) seeing a 16.1% increase in turnover. Multichannel retailers saw a 15.9% increase in online turnover.

Earlier, Statistics Netherlands released a report based on new quarterly retail data, showing that Internet sales in the Netherlands achieved record growth in the first quarter, up nearly 86% year-on-year. In contrast, total retail sales fell by nearly 1%, with turnover in the food industry increasing rapidly but turnover in the non-food industry falling sharply.

The rapid growth in online sales is mainly due to multi-channel players that sell both in store and online. These companies’ online turnover more than doubled from a year ago, while turnover for pure online stores increased by more than 59%.

In the first quarter of this year, more than 30% more web stores were established in the Netherlands than a year ago . Compared with the beginning of 2019, the number of new online stores has more than doubled.

In addition to the continued growth in online sales, sales in non-food stores increased by 15.8% in May 2021. Sales were 14% higher than in the same period last year. Compared to May 2019, sales in non-food stores increased by more than 17% in May 2021. Clothing, footwear and leather goods stores posted higher sales in May than in the same period last year for the third consecutive month. Clothing and footwear stores also posted higher sales in May 2021 than in May 2019.

Furniture and homewares stores, leisure goods stores, pharmacies, consumer electronics and white goods stores, and DIY, kitchen and flooring stores also reported higher turnover than one and two years ago.

Food, beverage and tobacco stores turnover in May was 0.9% lower than in May 2020, with sales remaining the same as in May 2020. Supermarket turnover was 1.2% lower than in the same period last year, while turnover in specialist stores was 1.4% higher than in May 2020. However, compared with May 2019, turnover in food stores was up 9.2%.

Netherlands

Online growth

retail