Belgians spent €7.9 billion online in the first half of 2023, an increase of 9.4% on last year, according to BeCommerce, the Belgian e-commerce federation, on Thursday. Purchases from Belgian online shops totalled €83 million.
The products that saw the biggest increase in online purchases, in terms of value, were sports and leisure (17.7%), followed by telecommunications (16.9%) and household appliances (8.8%). In terms of the number of transactions by category, leisure remains the dominant category (20.3%), followed by home and garden products (15.4%) and media and entertainment (9.9%).
For the first time, the services sector has overtaken the consumer goods sector. Belgians spent €4 billion on online platforms for services, up 20% on the same period last year. This was particularly the case for purchases relating to public transport and insurance.
Almost 45% of Belgian SMEs say they make sales via a digital channel. A quarter of them are seeing their sales increase by going online, while 14% claim to be able to create more jobs as a result.
In 2022, Belgium had 56,642 online shops: 71% of them are located in Flanders, 9% in Brussels and 20% in Wallonia. A breakdown by province shows that Antwerp has the highest number of e-commerce platforms (19%).
