The vast majority of Belgian online stores are individual businesses or small businesses that have to compete with large international or foreign players and market platforms. The costs of marketing, SEO, CMS systems, logistics and storage space therefore often weigh heavily. This platform, ASBL, wants to bring them together, make them stronger, help them meet and provide them with all the tools, knowledge and training to further professionalize their e-business.
Théodora takes back the initiative with new ambitions, namely more support, a strong online community of entrepreneurs, a new team with Julie, Laurence, Sylvie and Olivier for real national influence!
Today, more than 8.5 million Belgians buy online for a budget of more than 14.8 billion euros. An amount well above the record at the time of 2020 and which continues to increase.
Good news of course; but there is an important remark to make about Belgian e-commerce:
Unfortunately, 65% of these 14.8 billion leaves the Belgian economy; after all, it is the painful part of the shopping budget that is spent on online stores abroad.
For their part, existing online stores have struggled to compete with large international companies. So, they founded “Belgian e-shops”, an online “golden page” directory system for Belgian e-shops, offered a gift voucher platform and collected 2,500 stores in no time. As a result, Belgian consumers moved more quickly to a wider range of Belgian-based companies. Thanks to the expertise, knowledge and support of these women, affiliated stores have done well, sometimes even better than before.
The corona crisis has caused an upheaval in everyone's lives, privately and professionally, including that of 3 businesswomen, Nathalie, Laurence and Théodora.
Consumers only bought online,... a lot and in mass... because the doors of their usual stores remained closed! These 3 enterprising women, themselves active in the e-commerce market, saw with some concern how fellow traders had to desperately set up online stores to avoid facing bankruptcy.
