Supermarkets, butchers and cheese stores sold less in April through June than in the same months last year. However, sales rose. This is due to higher prices, according to the statistics agency CBS.

In the food sector, sales volume was almost 3 percent higher than the previous year, even though people bought 5 percent less.

The non-food sector shifted 6 percent more than it did in the second quarter of 2021. Clothing and footwear stores in particular recorded more sales, and furniture stores, DIY stores, and electronics stores underperformed last year.

There has also been a significant drop in online shopping in the Netherlands than there was a year ago, according to figures from the Netherlands Statistics Office. Web stores and stores that also sell online items in addition to physical stores had a 10 percent lower turnover compared to the same quarter of 2021.

The fact that the volume of online sales was lower in the past two quarters than the previous year is mainly due to the fact that the Dutch have done very extensive online shopping during Corona, according to Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist at CBS statistics agency. Now that all the stores are open again, many people go to the store again instead of the website.

Compared to before the Corona crisis, the sales volume is much higher: in the second quarter of 2019, the sales volume from online sales was 60 percent lower than in the same quarter of this year.