Total Retail 2017 Stores Strike Back! May 2017 “A deep dive into the Netherlands’ retail market” www.pwc.nl/totalretail 2 Total Retail 2017 Stores Strike Back! At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 223,000 people. At PwC in the Netherlands over 4,700 people work together. We’re committed to delivering quality in assurance, tax and advisory services. Tell us what matters to you and find out more by visiting us at www.pwc.nl. PwC Total Retail 2017 3 Online shopping in a hectic life Balancing my career with raising two children is a constant But we can predict trends by going to the source and juggling act and for me, time is at a premium. So, when my asking customers what they want and expect. To daughter recently asked me to buy her a new pencil case shed some light on the preferences and behaviours for school, I thought to myself: “When am I going to fit that of consumers, PwC surveys thousands of shoppers in?” Of course, it wasn’t just any pencil case she wanted; worldwide every year and presents the findings in our she had something specific in mind. Children notoriously Total Retail report. This year, we decided to take things have the best timing, and she happened to make this a step further, with a deep dive into the Netherlands’ request just as we were boarding an aeroplane. Once we market. Our findings from surveying 2,000 Dutch were both seated and while waiting for the plane to take shoppers are presented in this report. Through a off, I pulled out my mobile phone, opened a browser and separate report, which focuses specifically on the quickly scanned the web. I searched the usual Dutch pure Netherlands, we aim to provide insights and preliminary play sites, but they didn’t have the specific design she was views on the Dutch retail market and to highlight how it looking for. I then made my search more specific trying is different, or similar, to other countries. I believe you to describe the pencil case as clearly as I could… multi- will find some findings intriguing, and I hope they will coloured, multiple compartments and zippers, etc. As inspire you to further explore retail opportunities in the luck would have it, I found a pencil case closely matching Netherlands. Shana Laurie de Hernandez what she was looking for on an American website. I was R&C Industry Leader disappointed to see that the delivery and customs costs the Netherlands exceeded the price of the pencil case! The purser came onto About the research the intercom and was making the pre-flight announcement. In February, we published our global report on Time was running out. I quickly did a search for the Dutch Total Retail (www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/ translation of “zippered pencil case”, expecting to get more retail-consumer/total-retail.html). This report hits from Dutch based e-shops. Bingo! I quickly completed outlines ten investment recommendations for the sale and paid for it through my mobile banking app, just retailers, based on a survey of 24,000 shoppers in as the plane started to taxi down the runway. 29 countries. Now we publish a deep dive into the Netherlands’ retail market. This report is based on Most likely you have a similar story, which just goes to show a survey of 2,000 respondents in the Netherlands, how online shopping has evolved. It is now mainstream and conducted in November 2016. We asked them is being done on the go increasingly from mobile devices, about their shopping behaviour and preferences. rather than from tablets and desktops. The breadth of The survey aims to understand buying preferences product options, the quality of user interfaces, the variety and behaviours of Dutch shoppers. We used many of payment options and increases in service levels have all questions from the global survey, and from our dramatically improved over the last few years. As a result, previous Total Retail survey in the Netherlands online sales continue to rise, cannibalizing store-based sales, (2014, data from 2013). This allows us to contrast and we expect this growth to continue. As stores disappear the responses from Dutch shoppers to global and complete retail chains vanish, our streets are now averages and those from specific countries in getting clogged up with delivery vans carrying the millions Europe. It also allows a longitudinal analysis of the of parcels containing goods that we have ordered online. evolution of Dutch shoppers since 2013. So, where does this all end? Your guess is as good as mine. 4 PwC Total Retail 2017 5 6 Chapter 1 PwC Total Retail 2017 7 The Netherlands is lagging behind in its desire to buy online The Netherlands ranks in the tail of Europe when it comes to preferences to shop online. We see the Netherlands at the bottom of the list of European countries that participated in our Total Retail survey, both for preference to research products online, as well as preference to buy online. The survey reflects consumer preferences of 2,000 Dutch shoppers. Figure 1 NL consumers display a lower preference to purchase online compared to consumers from EU countries 45% Preferences to purchase online for EU countries in the sample 35% 40% 29% 31% 45% 44% 27% 41% 25% 35% 35% 29% 34% 27% 30% 44% 37% 39% Netherlands 25% Source: PwC, Total Retail NL 2017 8 “The gap between the Netherlands and benchmark countries is larger for the less established online product categories.” The gap in preference to buy online appears across a broad set of product categories, but is particularly prevalent in product categories where online sales have picked up more recently, such as health and beauty, do-it-yourself, home furnishings, jewellery and outdoor equipment. Figure 2 Preference to Purchase online NL versus benchmark countries Books, music, movies and video games 57% 8% 65% Consumer electronics 38% 14% 52% Average gap for more established Toys 45% 33% 12% categories: 12% Clothing and footwear 29% 13% 42% Household appliances 30% 12% 42% Health & Beauty (cosmetics) 23% 17% 40% Furniture and homeware 19% 17% 36% Do-it-yourself/home improvement 18% 16% 34% Average gap for less established categories: 15% Jewellery/watches 15% 18% 33% Sports equipment/outdoor 22% 10% 32% Grocery 11% 14% 25% Netherlands Gap with benchmark countries Source: PwC, Total Retail NL 2017 PwC Total Retail 2017 9 “Between 2013 This gap is not new. In 2013 we also saw the Netherlands lagging behind other European countries in terms of shoppers’ preference for online. However, the gap has widened since then. Where online preferences hardly and 2016 the increased in the Netherlands, they grew significantly in other countries. gap between the Figure 3 Online as preferred way of purchasing, NL vs. benchmark countries in 2013 and 2016 Netherlands and other western European countries has increased further.” 45% 41% 35% 37% 36% 27% 30% 27% 2013 2016 % of respondents who prefer ‘online’ above store Source: PwC, Total Retail NL 2017 10 The lagging position of the Netherlands extends to other shopping trends too. Compared to other European countries in the survey, shoppers in the Netherlands use their mobile phone less for shopping. This is especially the case for researching products and checking reviews of products and/or stores online. Where we see a trend in other countries that people shop ‘mobile in hand’ in the store, using their smartphone as a research tool for shopping, this seems to be less the case for Dutch shoppers. Figure 4 Online shopping behaviour on smartphone, Dutch consumers versus benchmark countries 39% I have researched 24% products. 28% I have checked 16% reviews about the product/retailer. Netherlands Average of benchmark countries Source: PwC, Total Retail NL 2017 PwC Total Retail 2017 11 12 Chapter 2 PwC Total Retail 2017 13 What explains the relatively high preference of Dutch shoppers to buy in-store versus online? One would expect that this is the case if, in the of 42 percent in their home market the United States Netherlands, the relative benefits of shopping online vs (source: Statista). Amazon is expanding in Europe in-store are smaller compared to other countries. and online sales typically get a boost with the arrival of Amazon in a market. Amazon recently opened its One such benefit is the convenience of shopping online, virtual doors in the Netherlands, but initially with a whenever and wherever, and with the option of having very limited product assortment focused on books, products delivered at home (which may or may not media and entertainment. Despite the absence of outweigh the consequential downside of having to Amazon, we would argue that the standard for web be at home during the expected time of delivery). shops in the Netherlands is pretty high, driven by Shopping online saves time and effort (but typically online pure players like bol.com, Coolblue, Zalando costs money in the form of a delivery fee). We would and Wehkamp. These companies adopted parts of the expect proximity of stores to lower the preference for proposition and service standards of Amazon, such online shopping, since it takes less time and effort as same-day delivery, free delivery on most standard when sufficient stores are nearby. Indeed, across orders and a marketplace for third-party sellers. European countries store density seems to influence These high service standards result in an increased the preference to buy online, with the Netherlands preference for buying online.