Dutch consumers made over 25% more online purchases in 2020

Source: Dutch Payments Association, Currence, Thuiswinkel.org, Retail Insiders, PostNL

Dutch consumers spent €26.6 billion at online shops in 2020, an increase of 7% compared with the previous year.

The total number of online purchases rose by 27% to 335 million. This growth was mainly caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the related government measures; in 2019, e-commerce growth had still appeared to be levelling off. Another striking feature of 2020 was the enormous difference between products and services, both in online spending and in the number of online purchases. These findings come from the latest edition of the Thuiswinkel Market Monitor, the study of online consumer spending in the Netherlands. GfK conducts the study on behalf of Thuiswinkel.org(opens in new window)  and Retail Insiders(opens in new window) , in cooperation with PostNL(opens in new window) , the Dutch Payments Association and Currence(opens in new window) .

The growth of the total e-commerce market can be attributed to several causes. The main factor was the higher number of purchases per online shopper: whereas consumers made an average of 19 online purchases in 2019, this rose to 24 in 2020. The number of online shoppers also increased by 2% to 13.8 million.

High peaks, deep troughs

“The e-commerce growth seen over the past year was driven by the enormous online boost in product categories,” says Wijnand Jongen, CEO of Thuiswinkel.org. “Online spending on products rose by 43% in 2020, while the number of online purchases increased by 41%. This partly offset the heavy losses suffered by the travel and leisure sectors, among others. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, online spending in the services sector fell by 39% and the number of online purchases by 37%.”

Government restrictions meant that consumers spent more time at home and were able to make fewer outings. This is reflected in unprecedented growth in online spending on Home & Living (+83%), DIY/Garden (+74%), Sport and Recreation (+62%), Food/Nearfood (+58%) and IT (+56%). Online penetration in some of these categories doubled, meaning that many more Dutch consumers began buying products in these categories online. Virtually all product categories recorded strong growth. The services categories, however, showed the opposite extremes. Online spending on package holidays fell by 72% compared with 2019, while spending on individual airline tickets and accommodation declined by 37%.

iDEAL continues to grow

The share of iDEAL(opens in new window)  as a payment method for online purchases rose sharply in 2020, from 60% to 69% of all online purchases. This increase was mainly due to greater use for online product purchases. The share of iDEAL grew particularly strongly in the Food/Nearfood segment, by 11 percentage points, mainly at the expense of debit card payments. Other payment methods, such as gift cards, were used less often for online purchases.
iDEAL was also the most widely used payment method for cross-border purchases, although its share of 46% was lower than in the domestic market. International payment methods such as credit cards (22%) and PayPal (16%) were used more often for cross-border purchases than for purchases from Dutch online shops. The typically Dutch payment method iDEAL was also frequently used at foreign online shops, as more major international retailers with many Dutch customers wanted to offer iDEAL as a payment option.

Infographic: Thuiswinkel Market Monitor 2020