BPN 1059 Sustained growth for e-commerce

E-commerce is latching on with broadband in The Netherlands. A press release from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that in 2006 e-commerce rose more quickly than in the years before. "In 2006, Dutch companies generated nearly 11 percent of their turnover through e-commerce. The share of e-commerce rose more rapidly in 2006 than in previous years, but the Netherlands has as yet not reached the level of the EU average.

Online orders have become increasingly important for the Dutch private sector in recent years. In 1999, e-commerce accounted for only just over 3 percent of total turnover realised by Dutch companies, but the share has gradually risen to nearly 11 percent in 2006.
The turnover share generated by e-commerce has grown three times as fast in 2006 as in the preceding years. This is mainly due to a sharp increase in the use of e-commerce in manufacturing industry. Proportionally, the sector manufacturing industry generated the largest part of its turnover (19 percent) through electronic orders. In the sector services, e-commerce did not play such an important part.

The share of e-commerce in turnover of Dutch companies remained marginally below the EU 15 average of 12 percent. Since 2003, the position of the Netherlands on the EU 15 list has hardly changed.

The share of e-commerce in the Dutch private sector in 2006 was about the same as in Belgium and Germany. In Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, the role of e-commerce was distinctly more prominent. The relatively low position of the Netherlands with respect to e-commerce is remarkable in view of the fact that a high percentage of Dutch companies have broadband Internet access. With 87 percent, the Netherlands was one of Europe’s front runners in 2006. Compared to 2002, Dutch companies have largely closed the gap with the other countries of the EU 15. In that year, 37 percent of Dutch companies had a broadband Internet connection, just under the EU 15 average of 40 percent".

The forecast for 2007 is even more buoyant. E-commerce is becoming so popular that traditional shop owners offers an internet channel, but e-commerce is also the death for shop owners. That is one of the conclusions of one of the Dutch plan bureaus. Especially in the centres of towns the landscape of shops is changing fast. Travel shops, television and washing machine shops, music shops will disappear completely due to the competition of the internet. Also the bookshops are said to disappear; yet a survey among the shops indicated that few have closed to internet bookshops. This is still possible because of the fine infrastructure, which guarantees a book within 24 hours and the fixed book price, which leaves no real competition between physical bookshops and internet bookshops.

Blog Post Number: 1059

Tags: e-commerce, internet shop