The latest quarterly report from Statistics Netherlands shows that there are more than 100,000 online stores in the country. At least this number of companies have online sales as their main activity, but the number is increasing.

The amount of online stores with a broad product range increased 14 percent last year.

Three months earlier, in the quarterly update from July, the statistics agency counted 97,905 companies in the same category. This is a difference of 2,085. That means that since this summer, around 700 new online stores were started every month in the Netherlands.

The amount of companies that have online sales as their main activity has more than doubled compared to five years ago. At the end of 2019, Statistics Netherlands counted 46,430 companies in the category. Since the beginning of last year, the country has more online stores than brick-and-mortar stores.

An interesting fact is that total spending in recent years did not grow along with the number of businesses. Online ecommerce sales increased by 1 percent, according to the latest Market Monitor by ecommerce association Thuiswinkel.org. In short, people spent the same amount of money on products while the amount of online stores did increase.

During the corona era, when online spending increased dramatically, the number of online stores grew rapidly, with 2021 being the record year. Although the growth rate slowed down after the pandemic, new ecommerce companies kept coming in. To be exact, the difference between now and five years ago is 115 percent.

In their report, Statistics Netherlands counts companies operating under SBI code 4791, or companies that primarily sell products over distance. This includes mail order companies and teleshopping providers, but their number is so low that Statistics Netherlands simply refers to all companies as ‘online stores’.

The Dutch Chamber of Commerce, though, counts 109,323 companies in the internet retailing category. An important difference is that Statistics Netherlands classifies companies by main activity or industry (the SBI classification), while the Chamber of Commerce includes both main and secondary branches of a company in the Trade Register.

According to Statistics Netherlands, last month there were 22,985 online stores selling clothing, or 23 percent of the total number of businesses. This makes clothing the most popular category, followed by online shops selling a general assortment (20,325 companies, or 20.3 percent) and online stores selling home and garden items (18,250, or 18.3 percent).

This year, the number of online shops with a general assortment grew the most in both absolute and relative terms. Indeed, 2,465 entrepreneurs were added since the measurement in the first quarter. This is an increase of 14 percent.

EBay has changed its cancellation policy rules giving shoppers more flexibility to cancel their purchases. From now on, they can cancel an order as long as the seller has not marked it as shipped. The company describes this as a simplification and benefit for both shoppers and sellers.

The new policy will take effect on August 28. EBay has informed its sales partners in countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. When customers press the ‘Cancel order’ button, they can retract their purchase, and the seller will be notified. The seller then has three days to accept or decline the request. The company says that on paid orders, eBay will automatically decline the request after three days, but it encourages sellers to respond quickly.

EBay also encourages sellers to be sympathetic towards cancellation requests. When possible, it’s recommended they accept the request, especially if it is sent within minutes or a few hours of when an order is placed. Doing so has shown to discourage return requests or ‘item not received’ cases and encourages the buyer to return to eBay for their next purchase.

On acceptance, eBay promises to automatically issue a full refund to the buyer and fee credits to sellers in accordance with their fee credits policy.

EBay buyers used to only have one hour to cancel an order after placing it. The company, which continues to implement improvements for both commercial and private sellers, justifies the policy change with the results of the tests conducted. These tests show that the number of cancellation requests increases only slightly with the introduction of the new policy – from 0.9 to 1.1 requests per 100 transactions. According to eBay, this is offset by a 25% increase in customer satisfaction.

EBay also promises to protect sellers who decline a cancellation request by removing negative or neutral feedback on these orders.

The environmental impact of retail, the online sales of clothing in particular, seems to be consistently underestimated. Between 22 to 44 percent of all returned clothing is never sold to a secondary consumer. These unused returned items have a big impact on the environment.

These data come from research conducted by the Ben-Gurion University. According to them, while most people are aware of the environmental impacts of fashion, there is still not a lot of research on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions on returns.

Returns are a commonly known problem in ecommerce, for online retailers. Previous research already showed that sellers in the DACH region have to deal with high costs per returned order. To discourage returns, many sellers have implemented return fees.

However, many consumers still do not understand the negative repercussions of returns. Over-ordering (ordering one item in several colors or sizes) in fashion is common practice, normalized by programs such as Amazon’s ‘Try before you buy’. As a result, 20 to 30 percent of items ordered online are returned.

The researchers point out that many consumers see the option of returning as a key factor in their purchasing decisions, few of them seem to know that returned items do not necessarily end up back on the shelves.

When items are returned, sellers need to complete a complex process of sorting, checking and often cleaning, repairing and repackaging the product. The costs of this process are often higher than the retail value. Since many returns can only be sold at a discount, some items are thrown away or destroyed without ever being used.

Based on a data set of 630,000 returned clothing items in Europe, 44 percent never reach a second consumer. Half of them are recycled, a quarter end up in landfills and a seventh are incinerated. The rest end up lost somewhere along the way.

According to the research, these unused products that are discarded have a very big impact on the environment. The GHG emissions that are associated with the production and distribution of these items are 2 to 16 times higher than all post-return transport, packaging and processing emissions combined.

The European Parliament aims to simplify VAT rules for ecommerce imports and wants to remove the threshold of 150 euros for import duties. Negotiations are still going on, but it has now been decided that the proposed changes will come into effect by March 2028.

It is a well-known fact that the European Commission wants to impose import duties on goods up to 150 euros. In May 2023, this proposal was first published. Since then, the process of getting it adopted by the European Council has been under way.

When importing a product from outside the European Union, purchased from an American or Chinese online seller, for example, a person is required to pay import duties. However, currently orders up to 150 euros are exempted from this obligation.

Many sellers on AliExpress and Temu take advantage of this as with their low product prices they do not need to pay import duties. As a result, hundreds of thousands of shipments from these sellers overload the air transportation market.

According to a study by the European Parliamentary Research Service, the current threshold gives traders an incentive to under-value their goods. They are falsely valuing their goods below the threshold, leading to lower VAT charges and evading customs duties.

Removing the threshold of 150 euros would mean that all imported goods will need to go through the IOSS (import one-stop shop) of the EU. This will lead to lower compliance costs. Additionally, it will reduce an administrative burden for businesses within the EU and make it easier for online stores in the EU to sell imported goods into the EU.

Negotiations are continuing in the European Council. The European Parliament has already voted in favor. The changes should come into effect by 1 March 2028.

Ecommerce in Spain amounted to over 84 billion euros last year, marking a 16.3 percent growth compared to 2022.

Most digital trade transactions were international. In the last quarter, Spaniards spent abroad nearly 60 percent of their money that was spent online, according to CNMC (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia), the national market and competition authority in Spain. To promote commerce, the organization also conducts market analyses, among other activities.

CNMC uses a broad definition of ecommerce in Spain. Within this, travel agencies and tour operators constitute the largest sector accounting for 8.5 percent of all electronic commerce in the fourth quarter of 2023. Clothing follows with a share of 7.3 percent amounting to about 6 billion euros annually, while air transport takes the third spot with a 5.5 percent share.

Gambling is the leader in terms of the number of digital purchases. In the last quarter of last year, this figure amounted to 432 million transactions, which means an increase of more than 15 percent.

In that last quarter of 2023, only 40.1 percent of the digital transaction value remained in Spain. The remaining 59.9 percent flowed to foreign entities. This amounts to 13.6 billion euros in three months, most of which was spent at sellers in other EU countries. Spanish consumers especially favor online stores from other member states for their clothing purchases.

The cross-border share of Spanish online transactions is growing – plus 19 per cent.

Meanwhile, Spanish online merchants are also increasingly earning revenue from foreign customers, but the volumes are small. Far more euros flow out of Spain to other countries than vice versa.

Amazon is the largest player in the Spanish digital market. It just recorded a gross annual revenue of 7.1 billion euros last year thanks to its activities in the country.

The European online consumer electronics market is estimated at 90 billion euros in 2023 and expected to increase 19 per cent by 2025, reaching 107 billion euros. Retailers and C2C marketplaces selling used and refurbished electronics are driving this growth.

These data come from the first edition of the ‘Top 100 Consumer Electronics Retail Europe’ ranking by Cross-Border Commerce Europe. The report lists the 100 biggest sellers of consumer electronics, while also giving insight into the market.

The consumer electronics retail market in Europe was worth 202 billion euros in 2023 and is expected to grow 1.25 percent annually. It is expected to reach 210 billion euros by 2025. That means that half of that revenue will be generated by online sales. And 52 percent (55.5 billion euros) will come from cross-border trade.

In 2023, the online consumer electronics market represented 11 percent of all online retail sales. That makes it the second-largest market share, after fashion. That market accounts for 15 percent.

According to the report, sellers in the Top 100 had an average share of 0.43 percent of the total online consumer electronics trade. Amazon has the highest share, with 18 percent. This marketplace made 16.2 billion euros in revenue from sales in electronics across Europe by in 2023.

Recommerce, which entails the refurbishment and selling of used items, is also growing its share in the online consumer electronics trade. In 2023, 7.7 billion euros of this market came from second-hand sales. This is a share of 8.6 percent.

Online sales of used consumer electronics are expected to account for 11.5 billion euros by 2025. Recommerce will then account for 11 percent of the total online consumer electronics trade.

German online platform Kaufland is collaborating with Consors Finanz, a provider of consumer loans and part of BNP Paribas Group.

Online shoppers can now use a loan financing option to purchase products on the platform.

Kaufland, a part of the Schwarz Group, is a hypermarket chain from Germany, with an online marketplace that will launch in Poland and Austria by the end of this summer. According to the company, over 11,000 retailers sell through Kaufland’s platform. Together, they offer more than 45 million products.

In April, the company announced that it would increase its seller fees. Now, the company is announcing another change to the platform. It is adding a new ‘buy now, pay later’ payment method for its customers, by adding Consors Finanz’ loan financing solution.

Customers can apply for an installment loan when ordering online, and will receive an answer in a few minutes. Payments to retailers are processed through an escrow account. For Consors Finanz, this is the first partnership with a marketplace.

Gerald Schönbucher, Board Member of Kaufland e-commerce, said the company’s members are delighted that this cooperation will expand the range of payment methods for the marketplace customers to include an attractive financing option. With Consors Finanz as a strong partner, they can offer extremely advantageous conditions in the area of ​​consumer loans.

The Turkish Ministry of Commerce reports that online spending in Turkey more than doubled last year. Significant growth is expected again this year. This is largely the result of inflation, but there is also considerable autonomous growth.

Ecommerce spending in Turkey amounted to 1.85 trillion Turkish liras in 2023, or 53 billion euros at the current exchange rate, approximately equally divided between products and services. Spending growth in liras was no less than 115 percent, but that does not mean that the importance of ecommerce has doubled in one year; the growth is largely due to raging inflation, which has risen to 75 percent.

Growth indicators

First, the number of transactions grew by 22.3 percent last year to 5.87 billion units. For comparison, in the five largest Western European countries, online spending did not or hardly increase in 2023, Forrester calculated.

Second, the online turnover share in total consumer spending has doubled in the past four years, from 10.1 percent in 2019 to 20.3 percent last year. Coronavirus gave a significant boost to the adoption of Turkish ecommerce, the ministry notes, but the growth has continued after the pandemic.

For this year, the commerce ministry expects spending growth of 84 percent thanks to 6.67 billion transactions. That is 13 percent more than last year. The forecast is higher than the promising European growth averages that Forrester and GlobalData previously predicted.

In Turkey, 559,412 companies are registered as active in ecommerce. The product categories with the largest turnover are white goods and household appliances, followed by electronics and thirdly clothing, footwear and accessories. On average, Turks have to wait 46.2 hours for an order to be delivered, according to the report.

Step by step, Amazon is revamping its delivery network.

To make deliveries to customers in the United Kingdom more sustainable, Amazon is increasingly using so-called micromobility hubs. The first micromobility hub in Northern Ireland recently opened.

Micromobility centers are, in fact, sorting centers in urban areas. Amazon is implementing a network of these hubs in major cities to reduce its reliance on traditional delivery vans and their associated carbon footprint.

Packages are brought from Amazon’s larger fulfillment centers to these hubs. From there, the last mile delivery to the customer takes place via electric cargo bikes or even on foot.

The company states that “millions of Amazon packages” have already been sustainably delivered from micromobility hubs in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and recently Belfast. The hubs help improve air quality and alleviate congestion on city roads, according to the market leader.

With its Climate Pledge, co-signed by hundreds of other major companies, Amazon aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. This is ten years earlier than the ambition outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement. To reach that goal, the ecommerce giant is making various aspects of its operations more sustainable.

Besides the last mile, as is the case with the micromobility hubs, Amazon’s sustainability initiatives involve earlier steps in the logistics process, such as the so-called middle mile and first mile. To decarbonize its transportation network in Europe, Amazon is, for example, shifting from roads to trains and boats.

Furthermore, Amazon has initiated dozens of renewable energy projects in Europe and has switched to using only recyclable boxes, bags, and envelopes for deliveries in Europe.

The online European cross-border market reached a turnover of 237 billion euros in 2023. This is an increase of 32 percent compared to the year before. European online stores generated 107 billion euros in cross-border turnover.

In 2022, European cross-border ecommerce was worth 179 billion euros and online stores in Europe generated a cross-border turnover of 105.5 billion euros. That was a record-high amount of turnover. Last year, they achieved an increase of 1.4 percent.

These data come from the 6^th edition of the ‘TOP 500 B2C Cross-Border Retail Europe’ from Cross-Border Commerce Europe, an annual ranking of the biggest 500 European cross-border online stores. The report does not include travel.

According to the report, the total online B2C turnover for goods in Europe reached a turnover of 741 billion euros. This is an increase of 13 percent compared to 2022. Of that total, 32 percent was generated with cross-border sales.

The report also highlights the biggest European ecommerce markets. German online stores generated 43 billion euros in cross-border turnover. This was an increase of 28 percent. Cross-border sales in the United Kingdom fell with a historically low 1.8 percent. Online stores in that country generated 27.5 billion euros in cross-border turnover. In 2022, they generated 28 billion euros.

Other European markets increased significantly in their cross-border turnover. French online stores generated 32 billion euros across borders (an increase of 30 percent). Spanish online stores reached 18 billion euros (increase of 50 percent) and Dutch online stores generated 7 billion euros (an increase of 45 percent).

The biggest 500 online cross-border sellers in Europe decreased in turnover, due to the unstable economic environment and competition from the US and Chinese brands. The GMV of the top 500 decreased 18 percent, to 50 billion euros in 2023.

According to the report, Ikea is the top 1 European cross-border seller. It achieved 5.2 billion euros in cross-border turnover. Collectively, the top 10 represent 19 percent of the top 500’s total sales.