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Key insights from this report

TL;DR

Major Dutch brands are not betting on hype technologies yet and mostly offer standard digital shopping experiences.
Omnichannel and premium brands in the Netherlands generally score highest in digital experience.
Many retail brands overlook the opportunity to seamlessly integrate their online and offline channels, missing the full potential of becoming truly omnichannel.
Value brands could significantly boost customer loyalty and average order value (AOV) by offering not just low prices but also stronger digital experiences through their own channels.
Despite rising consumer demand for sustainable brands, only 18% of top Dutch brands from the Top 50 list are B Corp (Benefit Corporation) certified.

Introduction

"Best-in-class" digital experience – a term frequently tossed around, yet its essence remains vague. What does it truly mean? Is it about having a beautiful website? An advanced, algorithm-powered experience? Or a standard set by leading market players?

These questions inspired us to start Brand Radar. Our humble quest is to define what digital success looks like in practice, identify what sets the winners apart, and discover what strategies propel commerce companies in the Netherlands to the top.

Today, Dutch brands find themselves at a crossroads. This is due to the post-pandemic resurgence of retail, the relentless rise of marketplaces, and consumers' openness to new experiences. Keeping up with the pace is increasingly challenging.

Thus, the purpose of Brand Radar is not only admiration but also application. By highlighting today’s digital leaders and dissecting their tactics, we aim to inspire you to create better, smarter, and more seamless customer experiences for your brand.

In the Key Insights section of Brand Radar, you will find the main learnings and statistics gathered from our analysis.

1. No major players betting on hype technologies yet

Crafting a standout digital shopping experience is challenging, especially on a large scale. We're bombarded with talk of AI-driven hyper-personalisation and VR-enhanced immersive experiences in retail trend reports. But have these technologies really taken off in the Netherlands?

Our analysis shows that the biggest Dutch players have not bet on these trends yet.

Looking at the brands with the highest traffic volume, most have pretty basic and reliable core shopping flows on their DTC channels. They provide a straightforward user experience: easy navigation, a robust checkout process, various payment options, and fast shipping.

That is great, commendable, and definitely not easy to maintain at scale. But is it enough for sustainable, long-term growth in the increasingly competitive digital commerce landscape? To answer this, it's important to understand what is the purpose of DTC channels in the first place.

Most of the biggest Dutch digital consumer brands have an "Okay" experience on their DTC channels.

Direct-to-Customer (DTC) are scalable and effective for building authentic, enduring consumer relationships. As the name implies, DTC allows bypassing intermediaries. For brands, it offers rich customer data, crucial for product development, engagement tactics, and brand building.

Yet, DTC websites aren’t the #1 sales channel in the minds of consumers. In 2023, customers had the best shopping experiences on the marketplaces, which provide ultra-fast shipping and the widest assortment for inspiration and product search. This raises a question: how can brands attract more traffic to their DTC sites? These sites need more than just a storefront. Solutions don’t have to be cutting-edge tech; they can include personalisation, relevant content, community engagement, or loyalty programs.

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Our takeaway: Reassess your brand's digital sales channels. Consider what experiences they offer that would entice customers to return. If marketplaces are where customers first encounter your brand, can you successfully draw them to the DTC website? Additionally, do you have a strategy in place for customer retention?

The leaders of digital experience

Only 5 brands on the Brand Radar scored "5 - Excellent". What made them stand out?

Take a look at the notable examples below.

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Notable examples from brands

2. Retail-first and value-driven brands tend to miss out on their opportunities

We have also observed many missed opportunities, particularly among retail-first and value brands. For instance, some of these brands (i.e., Trust) have high traffic volumes but do not even provide checkout on their websites.

Many other retail-first and value brands overlook their digital potential to drive revenue and customer retention.

Key tendencies were:

Lack of focus on customer retention and cross-channel engagement;
Poorly localised experience in foreign markets;
Little effort put into increasing the AOV through up-selling or cross-selling tactics.

Retail-first brands

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Our takeaway for retail-first brands: Review your sales channel strategy and the balance within. Does it allow consumers to seamlessly shift across digital and physical channels?

It seems that many big retail consumer brands do not highly prioritise their DTC channels albeit attracting significant traffic volume due to their high brand awareness.

The strengths of having a retail network are better product display, advice, and customer trust. They also serve as ‘offline billboards’ that build brand credibility.

Yet, the retail channels are losing to online when it comes to product discovery, search, comparison, and convenience.

Although omnichannel brands were a minority in the Top 50 list, on average, they had the strongest digital experience scores, while retail-first brands had the weakest.

Therefore, the connection between both can be one of your strongest assets in building loyal customer relationships. We always advise brands to define the key benefits per sales channel (online, offline, marketplaces, and so on) and elevate them.

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Learn more about developing and mastering omnichannel strategy here.

Value brands

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Our takeaway for value brands. Are you harnessing your potential to have a highly loyal customer base and increase the AOV?

When it comes to value purchases, price is usually the key differentiator and the main factor in customer decision-making. However, with this logic in mind, value brands risk neglecting customer-centricity, which is certainly not just a playbook for premium brands.

For instance, what if improved navigation and browsing experiences allowed customers to discover more products? This could lead to them adding more items to their order, thereby enhancing overall sales. Or what if a seamless and convenient omnichannel experience encouraged more customers to become repeat purchasers?

Brand radar is dominated by premium brands. Their Digital experience scores, on average, are 34.6% higher than that of budget brands and 7.4% higher than the average score of mid-range brands.

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Learn more about customer retention and building a sustainable growth engine here.

3. Sustainability and its growing importance

The Netherlands is ranked as the 11th most sustainable country in the world. In 2022, approximately 85% of consumers surveyed in the Netherlands said their purchasing behaviour became more sustainable.

However, among the top 50 Dutch consumer brands, only 9 (18 %) were certified by Benefit Corporation (a.k.a. B Corp). The category with the biggest number of B Corp brands was Home Goods.

These companies have voluntarily met certain standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. This designation is given by B Lab, a nonprofit organisation.

Some other brands (i.e., Suitsupply) were not certified by B Corp but have other sustainability accomplishments, such as being Fair Wear foundation leaders.

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Our takeaway With the rising environmental concerns, consumers will demand more and more transparency and accountability from brands. Achieving modern sustainability standards is a long and hard process, requiring strategy alignment, traceability, and supply chain transformations. Companies do not become sustainable overnight, so it is better to start sooner rather than later. We hope to see more sustainable brands on the Brand Radar next year.

Conclusion

The main aim of our analysis is to inspire you to build stronger and more resilient consumer brands and provide you with strategic and tactical guidance.

We hope you enjoyed it, and stay tuned for upcoming Brand Radar editions! We will continue evaluating brands in different regions and industries, providing an increasingly comprehensive view of the global market trends.

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