In the first nine months of 2017, Dutch consumers spent more on products such as apparel, toys and electronics compared to services as plane or event tickets. In total, 49.7 million online purchases were made in the Netherlands, of which 39.0 million were product purchases and 10.7 million online purchases of services. In 2016, Dutch consumers bought a total of 41.6 million products online.The health and beauty sector topped the list of the five fastest growing market segments, with a 57% increase. The other fastest growing sectors included food/near food (+ 47%); home & garden (+ 47%); shoes and lifestyle (+ 36%); and apparel (+ 29%). In Q3 2016, the fastest growing market segments looked very different with telecom, insurances, toys, plane tickets and IT in the top five.

Wijnand Jongen, director Thuiswinkel.org, said: “In the first three quarters of 2017, we see that online [spending] growth continued. This is due to the good results of both pure players and physical stores that also sell online products and/or services.”With the holidays spending not yet included in the report by Thuiswinkel, Q4 spending is currently estimated at € 7.0 billion, bringing total online sales in 2017 to € 22.7 billion. The total number of online purchases for 2017 is expected to reach 201 million.The Thuiswinkel market research, commissioned by Thuiswinkel.org, was conducted by German market research institute GfK in collaboration with Dutch postal service PostNL.