Tobacconists see turnover spike after cigarette ban in supermarkets

Now that supermarkets are no longer allowed to sell tobacco, tobacco shops' turnover has already increased by more than 40 percent this year, according to NSO Retail, the trade association for entrepreneurs with tobacco shops.

Supermarkets have not been allowed to sell cigarettes and other tobacco products since July 1 this year. However, a spokesperson for NSO Retail, which has some 1,600 tobacco stores affiliated with it, says the increase in turnover at specialty stores has been going on for some time. "Large supermarkets such as AH and Lidl had already stopped selling tobacco."

According to research by TabakNee, a research website of the Youth Smoking Prevention Foundation, more than a hundred new tobacco shops have opened in the Netherlands this year. "That's more than in the whole of 2023," says a spokesperson. "At the beginning of June, we had 230 new shops since the supermarket ban was announced at the end of 2020." According to TabakNee, entrepreneurs want to circumvent the sales ban by opening separate tobacco shops, often next to or near supermarkets.

NSO Retail claims that this is false. According to the trade association, "net dozens" of tobacco shops have been added this year. "That is certainly not a spectacular increase when you know that more than 6,000 supermarkets have stopped selling tobacco."

Industry organization Drive says petrol stations are also benefiting from the supermarket ban. Since this year, tobacco sales at the 1,300 affiliated petrol stations have increased "by between 10 and 40 percent," a spokesperson reports. The increase depends largely on the location: "At petrol stations along the motorway, the increase is not too strong, but at locations in inner cities, sales are clearly increasing."