Over the past two years, we have been investing and expanding our activities in Belgium to better serve our customers. Every day we strive to satisfy them while also helping entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow, creating jobs, and contributing to Belgium’s economic growth.
Since its launch, amazon.com.be has received a great response from Belgian customers, with whom we’ve built a strong relationship with our vast selection, low prices, and convenience. We've continuously improved the customer experience, notably by expanding our product selection; starting with 180 million products, we doubled the selection to 360 million in our first year. Now, after two years, we offer over 400 million products across 30 categories, significantly enhancing our customers' shopping options.
According to a report from the Belgian Federation of E-commerce, in the first half of 2024, nine out of ten Belgians shopped online.
To match increasing demand and better serve our customers, we have invested more than €450 million since Amazon’s arrival in Belgium, with more than €250 million invested in 2023 alone. This includes investments in our infrastructure and compensation to our employees.
Amazon in Belgium comprises more than 350 employees spread across the country, from our Brussels offices, including Amazon Web Services, to our logistics site in Antwerp, and Mechatronics in Hamme.
"Since launching Amazon's store in Belgium two years ago, we have been excited about the positive response from Belgian customers to our service, like Amazon Prime, and product offerings,” said Eva Faict, Country Manager of amazon.com.be. “We're proud to contribute to Belgium's economic growth by investing our energy, expertise, and innovative capacity in the communities where we operate. Our investment in Belgium has surpassed €450 million, with more than €250 million invested in 2023 alone, significantly boosting local economic development.”
Starting from January 1, 2025, Eva Faict will also take on the role of the Country Manager for amazon.nl, in addition to her current scope. She will succeed Roeland Donker, who recently left Amazon after more than 12 years.
Commitment to talent
From day one, we offer a safe and engaging work environment, as well as competitive salaries and attractive benefits to employees at the Amazon delivery station in Antwerp. Our logistics agents earn more than 7.4% above the minimum sector wage. Next to this we offer an end of year bonus, holiday bonus, lunch voucher, eco voucher per year worked (eco vouchers can be used for various sustainable products and services, promoting environmental consciousness), commute reimbursement, hospitalisation insurance, outpatient and group insurance, and the provision of training courses.
Belgium as an innovation hub
With the acquisition of Cloostermans two years ago, we continued to invest in customised state-of-the-art technology to drive innovation in our workplace and improve the employee experience. Based in Hamme, the Mechatronics team builds innovations that ensure fulfilment and delivery network safety, speed, optimisation, and value. The team’s development portfolio is focused on automation solutions in software workflows, matrix sortation and storage, and mechanical singulation. These innovations are designed to be widely applicable across various Amazon business units.
One of the most exciting innovations emerging from Amazon’s labs in recent years, includes the Universal Robotic Labeller (URL), which is reshaping our workplace and beyond. The URL is a high-speed auto-labelling technology that improves label placement and adhesion on irregular surfaces. Its innovation lies in its ability to apply different types and dimensions of labels, and on different types of irregularly shaped products. On one hand, it allows for applying smaller labels, hence reducing packaging dimensions; while on the other it allows for placing labels on paper bags, even irregularly shaped ones, or directly onto products to ship in product packaging, eliminating the need for additional packaging and contributing to reduced waste on the customer’s side. The URL represents a significant advancement in our fulfilment technology. It improves the entire labelling process, contributing to our sustainability goals, and, ultimately, benefiting our employees’ roles, customer experience, and the environment.
Continuous support to the economy and SMEs
Our success is underpinned by the success of the SMEs who work with us. Since the opening of amazon.com.be in 2022, we have been contributing to the Belgian economy by supporting SME growth. They account for close to 60% of the sales in our online stores, and we innovate every day to help them grow their business. Our efforts have focused on providing robust support and opportunities for these sellers to thrive on our stores through sophisticated tools helping them to reach hundreds of millions of customers around the world via exports.
According to the second Amazon SME Impact Report for Belgium, SMEs from all over Belgium have embraced the world of e-commerce, recognising an online presence as a significant opportunity for dynamic growth. Last year, Belgian SMEs sold over 10 million products, more than 20 products per minute and twice as many as last year on Amazon’s stores. More than 200 SMEs exceeded a turnover of €100,000 in sales, while more than 45 reached €1 million.
Belgian SMEs have also found international success through Amazon. This is shown by the fact that more than 1,400 local SMEs were able to increase their international export sales on Amazon to over €350 million in 2023, 70% more than in 2022. Whilst selling to customers in European countries is important for Belgian SMEs, they also achieved more than €175 million in export sales outside the European Union, more than three times than in the previous year. As of 2023, Belgian SMEs selling on Amazon have created over 3,000 jobs in the country to support their business online.
Finally, more than 700 of the 1,400 Belgian SMEs use our Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service which takes care of shipping and delivery.
"We are using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) - a solution which simplifies logistics and also provides benefits such as product storage in Amazon’s fulfilment centres, access to Prime, customer service for the products, and much more,” said Eric Delloye, Managing Director of Lucimed, a company which specialises in light therapy solutions. “This is a huge advantage for us and for consumers, who feel confident knowing their packages will be delivered reliably."
We offer a wide range of services designed to support entrepreneurs at every stage of their online journey. Most of our solutions are accessible 24/7 through Seller Central, allowing any entrepreneur to experiment and fine-tune their approach to e-commerce at their own pace, at any time of day.
