Dutch citizens almost double the amount of money spent on Chinese webshops

Dutch citizens spent over 100 million euros on webshops from China, almost double what they spent in the same period last year, market research agency GfK reported after research in cooperation with PostNL and the Dutch Payments Association. The research shows that the consumers in question were usually women and spent more money on clothing or items for the house.

According to GfK, the main reason for the increase is the higher average order amount. This means that spending in China from January to March already amounts to a third of the total for the whole of 2023. General manager Marlene ten Ham of Thuiswinkel.org called it an “especially strong increase.” This branch organization and knowledge platform Retail Insiders were the clients for the research.

Ten Ham noticed that the lower prices tempted consumers in most cases. However, according to her, these are not always achieved according to the rules. “We see that a number of the companies don’t stick to important laws on unfair trade practices, customs regulations, sustainability, privacy, and product safety. This helps companies to keep their prices lower.”

A well-known Chinese webshop is Temu. Since its launch in September 2022, it has grown into one of the most popular webshops in the world. Parent company Pinduoduo had a 246 percent rise in profits this year compared to the same period in 2023. However, Temu is under fire from consumer organizations. Regulators in South Korea started an investigation into Temu in April on suspicion of unfair practices.

Dutch consumers spent over 9 billion euros online in the first quarter of this year, 3 percent more than a year earlier. Out of this total, 1.1 billion euros was spent on 9.9 million purchases in web shops outside the Netherlands. More than 75 million purchases were made in the Netherlands during the first three months of this year.