Dutch buy more food online, less telecom

Food/ Nearfood was the fastest growing product category in the fourth quarter, according to a preliminary study from GfK about the Netherlands for industry group Thuiswinkel.org. Compared with the year before, Dutch people spent 52 percent more online on products in this category. The strong growth was attributed to the ease of shopping online for these products. After Food/Nearfood, Health & Beauty showed the strongest rise (+ 46%).

Telecom continues to decline

As in the previous quarter, online spending for the Telecom category decreased, by 2 percent. This may be due to the registration procedure introduced by credit rating agency BKR in May 2017 for people taking out telephone subscriptions with a device of EUR 250 or more. In order to prevent a BKR registration, consumers now opt more quickly for a subscription without device, pushing spending down for telephony.