Impact of COVID-19 on retail sales in the Netherlands and Belgium March 2020

Retail sales in the Netherlands and Belgium started to increase on March 11, peaking at a 50 percent rise compared to the week before, and subsequently dropped from March 17, decreasing by over 50 percent in Belgium. Retail sales in March 2020 were heavily affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in the Benelux. Whereas the spike in sales was caused by widespreak stockpiling to fill the “pandemic pantry”, the subsequent decrease was the result of social mobility restrictions imposed by the governments, as well as coronavirus concern among consumers.

The data provided here comes from Stocard, an app which stores loyalty cards onto a customers' smartphone in a digital wallet. The app had around three million users in the country in 2020.