Retail sales in the Netherlands rose by 2.9% year-on-year in May 2026, easing from a five-month high of 3.4% in April. Growth in the food segment weakened to 1.2% from 3.2%, as a sharper slowdown in supermarkets (1.1% vs 3.8%) more than offset a rebound in specialty food stores (1.6% vs -0.9%).
Online revenues also expanded at a slower pace (4.8% vs 5.9%), reflecting weaker growth among webshops (3.5% vs 6.2%), while multichannel retailers registered a modest improvement (6.7% vs 5.5%).
By contrast, turnover in non-food products picked up (3.9% vs 3.5%). Drugstores recorded the strongest increase in sales (6.5% vs 9.6%), followed by furniture and home furnishings retailers (3.8% vs 0.1%) and clothing stores (3.7% vs 1.7%), more than compensating for a smaller rise in shoes and leather goods (0.7% vs -3.6%).
