CBS January 2026 data shows 2.2% retail growth, but sector results vary dramatically. Supermarkets grew 3.2% while specialty food fell 0.9%.
Consumer electronics surged 10.8%, DIY dropped 1.8%.
Multichannel retailers outperformed pure webshops by 2.3 percentage points.
Your category matters more than the aggregate number.
What you need to know:
- Volume growth was only 1.2%, revealing that price pressure limits your pricing power.
- Food and drugstore e-commerce grew 7%, signaling normalized online grocery behavior.
- Multichannel retailers grew 5% versus 2.7% for pure webshops.
- Furniture, DIY, and fashion face structural decline
- Consumer electronics services and specialized food e-commerce show the strongest opportunity.
Why Most Expat Entrepreneurs Misread This Data
I pulled the January 2026 CBS retail data because most expat entrepreneurs running small businesses in the Netherlands benchmark against the wrong numbers.
You see 2.2% turnover growth and think: moderate expansion, steady market, reasonable target.
That’s not what the data shows.
The structure behind the 2.2% reveals which retail categories are absorbing consumer spending and which ones are bleeding out. If you’re in furniture, DIY, or undifferentiated fashion, you’re competing in a contracting market. If you’re in consumer electronics services or specialized food e-commerce, you’re riding a structural growth trend.
The difference determines whether your 2026 revenue projections make sense or set you up for cash problems by Q3.
What Does the 2.2% Growth Figure Mean?
The Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek reported 2.2% growth in retail turnover for January 2026 compared to January 2025. The figure is calendar-adjusted, meaning the CBS corrects for certain weekdays generating more sales than others.
Without that adjustment, growth would show 2.5%.
The 0.3 percentage-point difference matters when you’re comparing month-over-month performance. If you’re benchmarking your January against December without accounting for calendar effects, you’re measuring noise rather than signal.
The more useful number: volume growth was only 1.2%.
Volume represents price-adjusted sales. The gap between 2.2% turnover growth and 1.2% volume growth reveals continued price pressure. Dutch consumers are spending more euros but buying slightly more actual goods.
For your pricing strategy, this means limited room for price increases beyond inflation unless you’re supplying clear value differentiation.
Bottom line: The gap between turnover growth (2.2%) and volume growth (1.2%) means consumers have limited tolerance for price increases beyond inflation.
How Do Different Retail Sectors Compare?
The aggregate 2.2% growth hides massive divergence across retail categories.
Food Retail Performance
Food retail grew 2.6%, but the structure underneath reveals the real pattern:
- Supermarkets: +3.2%
- Specialty food stores (speciaalzaken): -0.9%
This gap signals ongoing consolidation in buyer behavior toward convenience and value. Dutch consumers are choosing Albert Heijn, Jumbo, and Lidl over specialized food shops.
If you’re an expat entrepreneur considering food retail, competing on general convenience is a losing strategy. Differentiation must come through specialty positioning: ethnic foods, organic, artisanal products. Supermarkets find it difficult to replicate at scale.
Non-Food Retail Performance
Non-food retail grew 1.9%, and performance varied wildly:
- Consumer electronics and white goods: +10.8%
- Drugstores (drogisterijen): +8.9%
- Shoes and leather goods: +4.1%
- Furniture and home furnishings: 0%
- Clothing: -0.3%
- Recreational goods: -0.9%
- DIY, kitchens, flooring: -1.8%
The 10.8% surge in consumer electronics rebounded from a negative 1.7% in December 2025. This swing suggests Dutch consumers are reinvesting in technology after a period of restraint.
For B2B micro-businesses serving the consumer electronics sector (repair services, accessories, installation), demand appears robust. The pattern shows continued hybrid work setups and digital lifestyle needs driving purchases.
The flat furniture market and declining DIY sector tell a different story. The pandemic-era home renovation boom has ended. If you’re running a home improvement service, adjust capacity expectations. Consumers have shifted from expansion projects to maintenance and substitution cycles.
Bottom line: Consumer electronics and health products show strong demand. Home improvement and general fashion encounter declining markets. Choose your sector carefully.
Why Are Multichannel Retailers Outperforming Pure Webshops?
Online retail grew 3.6% overall, slightly outpacing total retail growth.
The structure underneath reveals a tactical insight:
- Pure webshops (primary online retailers): +2.7%
- Multichannel retailers (traditional stores with online operations): +5.0%
The 2.3 percentage-point gap shows that Dutch consumers expect flawless integration between online and physical shopping.
Click-and-collect. In-store returns for online purchases. Showrooming. These are baseline expectations, not nice-to-have features.
For small retailers, this creates a structural problem. A basic webshop alone won’t cut it. You need integrated inventory systems, flexible fulfillment options, and a unified customer experience across channels.
The barriers to effective retail entry have risen.
If you’re online-only, adding a physical touchpoint (a pop-up, a showroom, or market visibility) unlocks growth. If you’re physical-only, the 3.6% online growth versus 2.2% total growth confirms that e-commerce capability is no longer optional.
For micro-businesses, this entails partnering with services like Bol.com or using Shopify instead of building custom infrastructure. The control point is integration, not ownership of every system component.
Bottom line: Dutch consumers expect integrated shopping experiences. A webshop alone won’t cut it. Physical presence adds value even for digital businesses.
Which E-Commerce Categories Show Real Growth?
Online retail performance varied by category:
- Food and drugstore e-commerce: +7.0%
- Other non-food categories: +2.8%
- Electronics: +1.9%
- Fashion and clothing: +0.1%
The 7% growth in food and drugstore e-commerce shows the maturation of online grocery shopping in the Netherlands. This behavior has normalized post-pandemic.
For specialized food e-commerce (meal kits, ethnic ingredients, dietary-specific products), this creates an opportunity. You plug into established buyer behavior instead of trying to create new habits.
Fashion e-commerce growth is near zero (0.1%), signaling market saturation. You’re competing against Zalando, Bol.com, and international platforms that already have the most available demand captured. Differentiation in online apparel requires strong positioning to justify entry.
Bottom line: Food and drugstore e-commerce grew 7%, creating an opportunity for specialized products. Fashion e-commerce is saturated, with growth at 0.1%.
How Should You Adjust Your 2026 Revenue Projections?
If you submitted a business plan to your bank or included revenue projections in your Belastingdienst filings, these CBS figures provide reality-testing benchmarks.
Projecting 10% to 15% growth in the Dutch retail environment without a clear differentiation strategy is unrealistic. This signals to lenders and tax authorities: you don’t understand your market.
Conservative planning for 3% to 5% growth, with clear tactical initiatives to outperform the sector average, is a more credible approach for most small retailers.
If you operate in one of the declining categories (furniture, DIY, general fashion), your projections need to account for headwinds. Growing in a contracting market requires taking share from competitors, and your differentiation and customer-acquisition costs need to be explicitly modeled.
If you’re in growth categories (consumer electronics services, health and wellness, specialized food), you have structural tailwinds. These CBS figures include large players. Small businesses see more volatility, both up and down.
Bottom line: Projecting 10% to 15% growth absent clear differentiation signals you don’t understand your market. Conservative 3% to 5% projections with tactical initiatives are more credible.
What About VAT in These Figures?
These CBS turnover figures are gross, inclusive of BTW (typically 21% for most retail goods, 9% for food).
For Belastingdienst reporting purposes, your revenue needs to be adjusted to exclude the VAT component. The CBS turnover figures help you understand market size, but require conversion for your own financial administration.
If you’re using accounting software like Exact, Twinfield, or Moneybird, make sure your revenue benchmarking uses net figures (excluding VAT) when comparing against your own performance. You’re inflating your market share by roughly 21% if you don’t.
Bottom line: CBS figures include VAT. Your internal benchmarking must use net revenue figures to avoid inflating your market standing by roughly 21%.
How Should You Apply This Data to Your Business?
If you operate a micro or small retail business in the Netherlands, benchmark your January 2026 performance against these CBS figures for your specific category.
If you’re underperforming the sector average:
Investigate operational issues first. Location, assortment, pricing, customer service. The problem is internal, not market-driven.
If you’re outperforming:
You have a competitive advantage worth protecting and scaling. Document what’s working before you forget the mechanism.
If you’re considering entering Dutch retail:
The data shows the highest opportunity in:
- Consumer electronics services and accessories (10.8% growth wave)
- Health and wellness retail (8.9% drugstore growth)
- Specialized food e-commerce (7% online food growth)
Avoid:
- General furniture retail
- DIY home improvement
- Undifferentiated fashion
These sectors face structural headwinds that small businesses struggle to overcome.
The Control Point
Most founders treat market data as background noise. They look at aggregate numbers, feel informed, then make choices based on intuition.
The CBS retail data becomes useful when you extract your specific category performance, compare this against your results, and use the gap to identify either operational problems or competitive advantages.
If you can’t explain why your performance differs from the sector benchmark, you don’t understand your business model well enough to scale or fix the issues.
Market data shows what’s structurally possible. Your results show what you’re capturing. The difference is where control lives.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CBS retail data, and why does it matter?
The Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek publishes monthly retail turnover data showing how different retail sectors perform. This data is calendar-adjusted and provides reliable benchmarks for comparing your business performance against the wider market.
What is the difference between turnover growth and volume growth?
Turnover growth measures total euros spent (2.2% in January 2026). Volume growth measures the number of goods sold, adjusted for price changes (1.2% in January 2026). The gap reveals price pressure and limits on how much you can raise prices.
Why are multichannel retailers outperforming pure webshops?
Multichannel retailers grew 5% versus 2.7% for pure webshops because Dutch consumers expect integrated experiences. They want click-and-collect, in-store returns for online purchases, and the ability to see products before buying. A webshop alone doesn’t meet baseline expectations.
Which retail categories should I avoid in 2026?
Furniture (0% growth), DIY and home improvement (-1.8%), and general fashion (-0.3%) face structural decline. Small businesses entering these sectors face headwinds that are hard to overcome without exceptional differentiation.
Which retail categories show the strongest opportunity?
Consumer electronics services and accessories (10.8% growth), health and wellness retail (8.9% growth in drugstores), and specialized food e-commerce (7% growth in online food) offer structural tailwinds for small businesses.
How do I benchmark my business against CBS data?
Find your specific retail category in the CBS data. Compare your January 2026 performance against the category benchmark, not the aggregate 2.2% figure. If you’re underperforming, investigate operational issues. If you’re outperforming, document what’s working.
Do CBS turnover figures include VAT?
Yes. CBS figures are gross and include BTW (21% for most goods, 9% for food). When benchmarking your own performance, use net revenue figures excluding VAT.
What revenue growth rate is realistic for a small retailer in 2026?
Conservative planning around 3% to 5% growth with clear tactical initiatives is more credible than projecting 10% to 15% growth. If you operate in a declining category, your projections have to account for market headwinds and explain how you’ll take share from competitors.
Key Takeaways
- The 2.2% aggregate growth hides massive sector divergence. Your category performance matters more than the overall number.
- Volume growth of 1.2% versus turnover growth of 2.2% reveals limited room for price increases beyond inflation.
- Multichannel retailers outperform pure webshops by 2.3 percentage points because Dutch consumers expect integrated shopping experiences.
- Consumer electronics, health products, and specialized food e-commerce show the strongest growth potential for small businesses.
- Furniture, DIY, and general fashion face structural decline, and small businesses struggle to overcome it.
- CBS figures include VAT. Benchmark your performance using net revenue to avoid false comparisons.
- The gap between sector benchmarks and your results reveals either operational problems or competitive advantages worth investigating.
