Belgian shoppers spent a record amount online in 2025, yet the country’s own web retailers captured almost none of the upside. New figures from Becom, the Belgian e-commerce federation, show national online spending reached 18.3 billion euros (about 21.3 billion US dollars at the EUR/USD rate of 1.164 quoted on June 5, 2026), an increase of 5.4 percent on the previous year. The same Market Monitor reveals that turnover at Belgian-based webshops grew just 3.43 percent, barely ahead of the country’s roughly 3 percent inflation rate, while Chinese platforms and large foreign marketplaces absorbed the difference. The result is a market that is expanding in aggregate but hollowing out for domestic sellers, a pattern that is becoming familiar across Europe’s smaller, open digital economies.
In short
- Belgian online spending hit 18.3 billion euros (about 21.3 billion US dollars) in 2025, up 5.4 percent year over year, according to the Becom Market Monitor reported on June 4 and 5, 2026.
- Domestic webshops grew only 3.43 percent, a rate that barely cleared inflation, meaning Belgian-registered retailers lost ground in real terms even as the overall market grew.
- Chinese platforms led the growth, with Becom estimating Shein and Temu expanding at 20 to 30 percent a year, alongside continued share gains for Amazon and other foreign marketplaces.
- AI entered the buying journey at scale, with 29 percent of Belgians now using AI tools while shopping online, up 8 percentage points in a single year, and 36 percent saying social media shapes their choices.
- The figures preview a wider European tension: small open markets are growing in value while the value flows to non-domestic platforms, sharpening the stakes around the EU’s July low-value import reforms.
What did Belgium’s e-commerce market actually do in 2025?
The headline number from Becom is straightforward: Belgians spent 18.3 billion euros online during 2025, up from 17.4 billion euros the year before. In dollar terms, that is a move from roughly 20.3 billion to 21.3 billion at current exchange rates. The 5.4 percent growth rate is solid by the standards of a mature Western European market, though it is slower than the 6.7 percent recorded for 2024.
Participation is now close to universal. Becom reports that more than nine in ten Belgians made at least one online purchase during the year, a penetration level that leaves little room for growth from new shoppers alone. Future expansion in a market this saturated has to come from higher frequency, larger baskets, or new categories rather than from first-time buyers.
That maturity is the context for the more uncomfortable findings beneath the headline. A growing total spend is usually read as good news for a national retail sector, but the Becom data separates the size of the market from who benefits. On that second measure, the 2025 picture is far less reassuring for Belgian companies.
The federation frames the year as one of structural divergence. Aggregate demand is healthy and resilient, consumer confidence in online channels is high, and digital is now the default for a large share of everyday purchases. The question Becom poses is no longer whether Belgians shop online, but whose tills the money ultimately reaches.
The metric that matters: domestic versus total growth
The single most important figure in this year’s report is the gap between two growth rates. Total online spending rose 5.4 percent, but turnover at Belgian-based webshops rose only 3.43 percent. With consumer price inflation near 3 percent in 2025, the domestic sector’s real growth was close to zero once rising prices are stripped out.
That gap is the story. It means the additional spending that pushed the market to 18.3 billion euros flowed disproportionately to retailers and platforms based outside Belgium. Domestic players are not shrinking, but they are running to stand still while the value created by a growing market accrues elsewhere.
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total online spend | 17.4bn euros (~20.3bn USD) | 18.3bn euros (~21.3bn USD) | +5.4% |
| Domestic webshop turnover growth | n/a | +3.43% | near inflation |
| Consumer price inflation | n/a | ~3.0% | reference |
| Shoppers buying online | ~9 in 10 | 9+ in 10 | saturated |
| AI used while shopping | 21% | 29% | +8 ppt |
Why are Belgian webshops missing the growth?
Three forces explain why domestic retailers underperformed the market they operate in. None is unique to Belgium, but the combination is especially acute in a small country wedged between larger, more developed digital economies. The first is price-led competition from Asian platforms. The second is the structural pull of dominant foreign marketplaces. The third is a home market too small to build defensible scale.
Price is the most visible factor. Becom’s survey found that Belgian consumers overwhelmingly cite low prices as the reason they buy from Asian platforms, even when they expect service or quality problems. For a domestic retailer carrying European cost structures, VAT, and compliance overhead, matching direct-from-factory pricing is close to impossible without sacrificing margin.
Scale is the quieter factor. Belgium’s roughly 11.7 million people are split across language communities and sit beside the much larger Dutch, French, and German markets. A Belgian webshop rarely enjoys the home-market density that lets a retailer in a larger country amortize technology, logistics, and marketing across a big base before expanding abroad.
Logistics and fulfillment compound the problem. Foreign marketplaces have invested heavily in European warehousing and last-mile networks, and that investment keeps accelerating. Amazon’s recent commitment to expand European fulfillment and robotics is one example of the capital intensity that smaller domestic players struggle to match, a dynamic explored in our coverage of Amazon’s pledge to invest 10 billion euros in European robotics.
The cost-structure squeeze
Belgian retailers face a cost base that their cross-border rivals can sidestep. Local labor costs are high, consumer protection rules are strict, and returns are both expected and, for many categories, effectively free to the shopper. Each of those features is good for consumers, but each adds cost that a domestic seller must recover in price.
Cross-border sellers shipping low-value parcels have historically avoided some of that overhead, particularly around duties and the friction of local compliance. That asymmetry is precisely what the European Union’s coming reforms are designed to address, though the timing means the 2025 figures predate any corrective effect.
How big is the Chinese platform threat to Belgian stores?
Becom is unusually direct about the source of the pressure. Greet Dekocker, the federation’s director, summarized the year by noting that Chinese players such as Shein and Temu are posting annual growth rates of 20 to 30 percent, despite what she described as their questionable reputation. That growth rate is five to nine times faster than the domestic sector managed.
The reputational caveat is borne out by the survey itself. Becom found that a majority of Belgians who bought from Chinese stores reported problems with those purchases, ranging from delivery delays to product quality and returns friction. Yet the same shoppers say they intend to keep buying, a striking gap between satisfaction and behavior.
That gap is the strategic challenge for Belgian retailers. The Asian platforms are not winning on service or trust, which are areas where domestic sellers should hold an advantage. They are winning on price and assortment breadth, and Belgian consumers are willing to tolerate a worse experience to capture the saving.
The satisfaction paradox in the numbers
The survey data sketches a consumer who is clear-eyed about the trade-off. According to the Market Monitor, a clear majority of Belgians have now bought from Chinese stores, a similar majority reported encountering problems with those orders, and a large share nonetheless say they plan to order again. Cheap pricing is doing the heavy lifting that brand trust normally provides.
For policymakers, that paradox is the argument for intervention on a level playing field rather than on consumer warnings. Shoppers already know the risks and are accepting them. The lever that changes behavior is therefore cost and compliance parity, not information, which is why the regulatory debate has shifted toward import fees and customs treatment. We unpack the regulatory direction of travel in our analysis of why the bloc’s new rules will not slow Temu and Shein’s European growth in the near term.
| Channel type | Approx. 2025 growth | Primary advantage | Main weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belgian domestic webshops | +3.43% | Trust, service, proximity | Higher cost base, limited scale |
| Chinese platforms (Shein, Temu) | +20% to +30% | Price, assortment breadth | Quality and returns problems |
| Large foreign marketplaces | Outpacing domestic | Logistics, selection, Prime-style loyalty | Less local specialization |
Where did Belgians actually spend their money?
The category breakdown shows that the largest pools of online spending remain in established discretionary and everyday segments. Clothing and shoes led the market at 2.7 billion euros (about 3.1 billion US dollars), reflecting fashion’s long-standing fit with online discovery and the aggressive presence of Asian apparel platforms in that exact category.
Electronics followed at 1.7 billion euros (about 2.0 billion US dollars), a category where price comparison is intense and where large marketplaces hold a structural advantage on selection and delivery speed. Fast-moving consumer goods, including food and beauty, accounted for 1.26 billion euros (about 1.5 billion US dollars), signaling that the shift of routine grocery and household replenishment online continues to build.
The composition matters because it maps neatly onto the competitive threat. Clothing and shoes, the single biggest category, is also the home turf of Shein and Temu. Electronics, the second biggest, is dominated by global marketplaces. The two largest spending pools in Belgium are precisely the two where domestic sellers are least able to compete on price.
| Category | 2025 online spend (EUR) | Approx. USD | Competitive exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clothing and shoes | 2.7bn euros | ~3.1bn USD | High (Shein, Temu) |
| Electronics | 1.7bn euros | ~2.0bn USD | High (global marketplaces) |
| FMCG (food, beauty) | 1.26bn euros | ~1.5bn USD | Rising, more local |
The categories where domestic players still hold ground
The picture is not uniformly bleak for Belgian sellers. Fast-moving consumer goods, particularly grocery and fresh categories, remain harder for distant cross-border platforms to serve because of perishability, delivery windows, and the value of local supply chains. That is one segment where proximity is a genuine moat rather than a marketing line.
Services, experiences, and categories that depend on local fulfillment or after-sales support also favor domestic operators. The strategic implication is that Belgian retailers may need to concentrate where their structural advantages are real, rather than fighting a price war in fashion and electronics that the cost structure makes unwinnable.
How does Belgium compare with its larger neighbors?
Belgium’s predicament is sharpened by geography. It is a small, open, multilingual market surrounded by three of Europe’s largest e-commerce economies. Germany’s online retail sector alone is projected to grow 4.3 percent this year toward 96.3 billion euros, according to figures reported by the German retail association and covered alongside the Belgian data this week, dwarfing the Belgian total many times over.
That asymmetry shapes behavior. Belgian consumers shop comfortably across borders, with a large share buying from Dutch, French, German, and increasingly Asian webshops. Cross-border purchasing accounts for roughly a third of the country’s total online turnover, one of the higher rates in the European Union, which is both a sign of an open consumer culture and a structural leak for domestic sellers.
For a retailer, the math is unforgiving. A German or Dutch seller can build scale at home and then treat Belgium as a natural adjacent market reachable in the same language with the same logistics. A Belgian seller attempting the reverse faces larger, better-capitalized incumbents on their home turf. The home-market scale gap runs in one direction.
What the cross-border leak means in practice
The roughly one-third cross-border share is the clearest single measure of why aggregate market growth does not translate into domestic gains. Every euro spent on a foreign webshop counts toward the 18.3 billion euro total but contributes nothing to Belgian retail employment, tax, or reinvestment. The market can grow indefinitely while the domestic share erodes.
This is why Becom’s report reads less as a celebration of a record year and more as a warning. The federation is effectively arguing that headline market size is the wrong scoreboard, and that the metric worth watching is the domestic capture rate, which is heading the wrong way.
What is AI doing to the Belgian shopping journey?
One of the report’s most striking findings has nothing to do with geography. The share of Belgians using AI tools while shopping online jumped to 29 percent in 2025, up 8 percentage points from 21 percent a year earlier. That is one of the fastest behavioral shifts in the entire dataset, and it happened in a single year.
AI is moving from novelty to utility in the buying journey. Shoppers are using assistants and AI-enhanced search to compare products, summarize reviews, find lower prices, and shortlist options before they buy. For retailers, that changes the surface on which discovery happens and raises the stakes around structured product data and machine-readable content.
The competitive risk is that AI tools, like marketplaces before them, tend to favor breadth, price, and data quality. A platform with millions of SKUs and rich structured data is easier for an AI assistant to surface than a small domestic webshop with thin product feeds. Without investment in their data layer, Belgian sellers risk being invisible to the next discovery channel just as they were squeezed on the last one.
Social media as the other discovery engine
Alongside AI, social platforms continue to shape demand. Becom found that 36 percent of Belgian consumers say social media influences their purchasing choices, underlining how much discovery now happens outside traditional search and outside retailers’ own websites. Content-driven commerce is no longer a fringe channel.
That matters because the platforms that own social discovery, from established networks to the rapid rise of in-feed shopping, are overwhelmingly foreign. A Belgian retailer that wins attention on those surfaces is renting reach from a platform that can change the rules, while the platforms themselves increasingly host native checkout that keeps the transaction inside their walls.
Why AI raises the regulatory stakes
The speed of AI adoption also feeds the policy conversation. As more of the buying journey is mediated by automated tools and persuasive interface design, regulators are paying closer attention to how choices are framed online. The direction of that scrutiny is set out in our look at how the bloc’s planned Digital Fairness Act will target retail user-experience tactics from late 2026.
What does the data mean for cross-border policy and the July import change?
The timing of the Becom report is pointed. It lands weeks before the European Union’s reform of low-value import treatment takes effect, a change widely expected to raise the landed cost of the cheap parcels that have powered Shein and Temu’s growth. The 2025 figures are, in effect, the last clean snapshot of the market before that intervention.
The core of the EU change is the removal of preferential treatment for low-value consignments and the introduction of a handling fee per parcel, measures intended to close the gap between cross-border platforms and domestic sellers. For Belgian retailers, the reform is the most direct policy lever yet aimed at the asymmetry the Becom data exposes. The mechanics of the duty-free rollback are detailed in our report on how the EU is ending the duty-free threshold for low-value imports from July.
Whether the reform actually shifts behavior is the open question. The satisfaction paradox in the survey, where shoppers tolerate problems for the sake of price, suggests that a few euros of added cost per parcel may not be enough to change habits at scale. If the Asian platforms absorb or localize around the fee, the domestic capture rate may not improve much even after July.
For the full Becom findings, the federation publishes its annual e-commerce report through its own channels, including the Becom annual e-commerce report, which sets out the methodology behind the Market Monitor.
What should Belgian and international merchants do now?
The strategic takeaways from the report extend well beyond Belgium, because the same forces are at work in every small open European market. The first lesson is that competing head-on with Asian platforms on price in fashion and low-value goods is a losing position for most domestic sellers. The cost structure does not allow it, and the data shows consumers will accept a worse experience for the saving.
The second lesson is to concentrate where structural advantages are defensible. Local fulfillment, fresh and perishable categories, after-sales service, and trust-sensitive purchases all favor domestic operators. Retailers that lean into proximity, speed, and reliability can hold or grow share even as the price-led categories leak abroad.
The third lesson is to invest in the data layer that AI and social discovery now depend on. Structured product information, clean feeds, and content that machines can parse are becoming prerequisites for visibility. Merchants that treat their catalog data as a strategic asset will be easier for assistants and social platforms to surface than those that do not.
For sellers eyeing expansion rather than defense, the cross-border opportunity runs both ways, and Belgian openness is a model of the demand that awaits well-localized foreign entrants. The operational groundwork for serving buyers in another market well is covered in our guide to localizing a store for cross-border buyers beyond translation.
The case for cooperation and scale
Becom’s underlying argument is that domestic retailers cannot solve the scale problem alone. Shared logistics, common standards, and policy that levels the playing field on duties and compliance are the levers that can offset the structural disadvantage of a small home market. Individual sellers optimizing their own funnels will not reverse a market-wide leak.
That points toward consolidation, partnership, and sector-level investment in shared infrastructure. The alternative, on the trajectory the 2025 data describes, is a domestic e-commerce sector that grows in name while steadily ceding the value of a growing market to platforms based elsewhere.
What does this signal for the rest of Europe?
Belgium is a useful bellwether precisely because it is small, open, and surrounded by larger neighbors. The dynamic the Becom report captures, where total spend rises while domestic capture falls, is likely to play out across the Netherlands, the Nordics, Austria, Portugal, Ireland, and other markets that share those traits. The Belgian numbers are an early read on a continental pattern.
The European response will hinge on whether policy and industry can change the capture rate rather than the headline. The July import reforms are the first major test. If they meaningfully raise the cost of cross-border low-value parcels, domestic sellers in markets like Belgium may claw back some share. If platforms localize around them, the leak continues.
For now, the 2025 data delivers a clear message that applies far beyond Brussels. A growing e-commerce market is not automatically good news for the retailers who operate inside it. The number that counts is not how much consumers spend, but where that spending lands, and on that measure Belgium’s domestic sector ended 2025 going backward in all but name.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Belgians spend online in 2025?
According to the Becom Market Monitor reported on June 4 and 5, 2026, Belgian consumers spent 18.3 billion euros online in 2025, about 21.3 billion US dollars at the EUR/USD rate of 1.164 quoted on June 5. That is a 5.4 percent increase on the 17.4 billion euros spent in 2024.
Why are Belgian webshops described as missing out?
While the total market grew 5.4 percent, turnover at Belgian-based webshops grew only 3.43 percent, barely above the roughly 3 percent inflation rate. That means domestic retailers saw close to zero real growth, while most of the additional spending flowed to foreign platforms and marketplaces.
How fast are Shein and Temu growing in Belgium?
Becom director Greet Dekocker said Chinese platforms such as Shein and Temu are posting annual growth rates of 20 to 30 percent. That is roughly five to nine times the growth rate of Belgian domestic webshops, and it is concentrated in categories like clothing where those platforms compete hardest on price.
Do Belgian shoppers trust Chinese platforms?
Not especially. The survey found that a majority of Belgians who bought from Chinese stores reported problems with their orders, yet a large share still plan to buy again. Low prices outweigh service and quality concerns, creating a gap between satisfaction and behavior.
Which categories see the most online spending in Belgium?
Clothing and shoes led at 2.7 billion euros (about 3.1 billion US dollars), followed by electronics at 1.7 billion euros (about 2.0 billion US dollars) and fast-moving consumer goods such as food and beauty at 1.26 billion euros (about 1.5 billion US dollars). The two largest categories are also where foreign competition is fiercest.
How many Belgians use AI when shopping?
The Becom report found that 29 percent of Belgians used AI tools while shopping online in 2025, up 8 percentage points from 21 percent the year before. Separately, 36 percent said social media influences their purchasing choices, underscoring how discovery is shifting away from traditional search.
How does the EU’s July import change fit in?
The European Union is removing preferential treatment for low-value imports and adding a per-parcel handling fee, measures aimed at narrowing the cost gap that has helped cross-border platforms grow. The Becom figures predate the change, making 2025 a baseline against which the reform’s effect can be measured.
Is Belgium’s situation unique in Europe?
No. The pattern of rising total spend alongside falling domestic capture is likely to appear in other small, open markets surrounded by larger neighbors, including the Netherlands, the Nordics, Ireland, and Portugal. Belgium is an early indicator of a broader European dynamic rather than an isolated case.
What can domestic retailers do about it?
Becom and analysts point to concentrating on defensible strengths such as local fulfillment, fresh categories, trust, and after-sales service, rather than competing on price in fashion and electronics. Investing in structured product data for AI and social discovery, and pursuing shared logistics and scale, are also seen as essential responses.