Retail sales in the Netherlands increased by 2.9% year-on-year in May 2026, slowing from a five-month high of 3.4% rise in the previous month.
Sales growth in the food sector softened to 1.2% from 3.2% in April, as smaller gains in supermarkets (1.1% vs 3.8%) outweighed a rebound in specialty food stores (1.6% vs -0.9%).
Online revenues also rose at a lesser extent (4.8% vs 5.9%), as growth at webshops slowed (3.5% vs 6.2%), while multichannel retailers saw a modest pickup (6.7% vs 5.5%).
In contrast, turnover for non-food products accelerated (3.9% vs 3.5%), with drugstores (6.5% vs 9.6%) posting the largest increase in sales, followed by furniture and home furnishings stores (3.8% vs 0.1%) and clothing stores (3.7% vs 1.7%), which more than offset smaller rise in shoes and leather goods (0.7% vs -3.6%).