Why Ghent businesses are investing in online stores
Ghent is a capital of east flanders province, belgium, where around 273,000 people live and shop, and one of the markets in Belgium where we build online stores.
Key sectors include biotech and tech startups, with business districts such as the city centre and Technologiepark.
Logistics are supported by Port of Ghent, which matters when you promise customers fast delivery.
Belgium has SMEs make up 99% of all businesses in the European Union (European Commission). Belgian shoppers expect bilingual Dutch/French stores and Bancontact at checkout. Many still buy from Dutch and French sites, so local stock and fast delivery are a real edge.
Shoppers and trade buyers in Ghent already compare options on their phones; an online store that loads fast, shows accurate stock and accepts Bancontact turns that research into orders.
What makes a Ghent store feel local
Conversion in Ghent depends on small local signals — the right currency, the right words and the right payment and courier names.
Currency and pricing
Prices, taxes, shipping and refunds are shown in euro (EUR), formatted the way Ghent customers read them.
Language and content
Storefront copy, product pages and emails can run in Dutch, French and German, with local date and number formats.
Local trust signals
Badges for Bancontact and Visa and Mastercard, bpost delivery and clear return terms reassure first-time buyers in Ghent.
Domain, phone and contact
A .be domain (or your own) builds local trust and search relevance. Contact buttons are pre-set with +32, so a customer in Ghent taps once to call or message.
Talent and partners nearby
With Ghent University close by, finding people to manage catalogues, content and support after launch is realistic in Ghent.
Designed to your requirements, not a template
Ghent businesses tell us what they sell and how they want to sell it; our engineers turn that into a custom online store, an admin system and a mobile app shaped around their operations.
Typical clients include D2C start-ups, speciality shops, manufacturers selling direct and grocery and food businesses. Categories that sell especially well online in Belgium — fashion, electronics, food and chocolate and home — get catalogue structures and filters designed for them.
Before any commitment you get a free requirements meeting, a demo built on your use case and a proposal priced to your budget.
Features of your online store in Ghent
These are the building blocks of an online store. We scope them with you, so you pay for what your Ghent operation needs.
Branded storefront
A fast, mobile-first design on your own domain with your colours, typography, banners, landing pages and SEO-ready category structure. Couriers such as bpost, PostNL Belgium and DPD plug in alongside your own fleet for Ghent orders.
Catalogue manager
Categories, brands, variants, bundles, specifications, images, videos and bulk import/export so your team can manage thousands of SKUs. Stock can be held in Ghent or anywhere in Belgium, with pickup and local-delivery options where they make sense.
Checkout and payments
Guest and account checkout, local payment gateways, wallets, bank transfer, cash on delivery, coupons and abandoned-cart recovery. Reports show which products, customers and areas of Ghent drive revenue.
Orders and fulfilment
Order confirmation, packing slips, courier booking, tracking links, cancellations, returns, refunds and customer notifications. Pages, search filters and wording are tuned to how people in Ghent look for products, in Dutch and French if your audience needs it.
Inventory and locations
Stock by warehouse or store, low-stock alerts, store pickup, local delivery zones and sync with your existing inventory system. Catalogues come in from spreadsheets, ERP exports or supplier feeds, so your Ghent team keeps its current way of working.
Growth and reporting
Promotions, loyalty, reviews, email and WhatsApp campaigns, plus dashboards for revenue, products, customers and conversion. Customers in Ghent can pay with Bancontact, Visa and Mastercard and PayPal, with receipts and refunds handled in the same admin.
Payments customers in Ghent expect
A store that serves Ghent should let customers pay the way they do offline: Bancontact, Visa and Mastercard, PayPal and Payconiq.
Provider approval, settlement time and fees differ by business type, so we shortlist gateways with you, then wire up status updates, refunds and reconciliation in EUR — card details stay with the provider.
Zone-based payment rules let you offer different options for the city centre than for outer parts of Ghent.
- Visa and Mastercard
- Apple Pay
- Payconiq
- Bancontact
- KBC/CBC Pay
- PayPal
Delivery and fulfilment from Ghent
Your online store can book shipments and share tracking with bpost, PostNL Belgium, DPD, GLS, DHL and Mondial Relay, or route orders to your own riders and stores across Ghent.
Delivery rules can price by distance, weight, postcode or zone, offer same-day slots in dense areas, and switch on pickup points or click-and-collect where customers prefer them.
Connectivity in the area — Port of Ghent — makes regional and national dispatch from Ghent practical.
Tax, invoicing and compliance in Belgium
Belgian VAT is 21% standard with 12% and 6% reduced rates; B2B e-invoicing via Peppol is mandatory from 2026.
On privacy we design around the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy rules on cookies and marketing consent, enforced by the Belgian Data Protection Authority; on consumer rights the store reflects the EU Consumer Rights Directive (14-day withdrawal right), the Digital Services Act and, from June 2025, the European Accessibility Act for online shops and Book VI of the Code of Economic Law.
We build the technical controls — tax-inclusive pricing, compliant invoices, consent banners, terms and return pages, data-access roles and audit logs. We are not a law firm, so final legal and tax positions should be confirmed with your own adviser in Belgium.
Owning your channel in Belgium
Bol, Amazon (FR/NL/DE) and Coolblue are where many shoppers in Ghent start, which is why sellers list there. The trade-off is commission, limited branding and rules the platform can change overnight.
Your online store becomes the hub: marketplaces and social shops become extra outlets fed from one catalogue, while repeat customers buy directly from you at better margins.
Who we build for in Ghent
Popular online categories in Belgium include fashion, electronics, food and chocolate, home, beauty and books. Local demand in Ghent is shaped by biotech and tech startups, so we often design catalogues and B2B ordering around those sectors. In Ghent, we most often build online stores for:
Retail brands
Retail brands get branded storefront plus checkout and payments workflows tailored to their operations.
D2C start-ups
We map how D2C start-ups sell today and digitise it end to end — from enquiry and order to payment, dispatch and repeat purchase.
Speciality shops
For speciality shops, we usually start with orders and fulfilment, then add accounting and GST/VAT invoicing once orders are flowing.
Manufacturers selling direct
Catalogue, pricing and fulfilment rules designed for manufacturers selling direct in Ghent, connected to the systems you already use.
Grocery and food businesses
Grocery and food businesses get inventory and locations plus branded storefront workflows tailored to their operations.
Multi-outlet retailers
We map how multi-outlet retailers sell today and digitise it end to end — from enquiry and order to payment, dispatch and repeat purchase.
Add a mobile app for Ghent customers
In Ghent, shoppers browse on phones first. A customer shopping app for Android and iOS can share the same catalogue, cart, offers and order history, with push notifications for drops, price alerts and delivery updates.
Apps are published under your own developer accounts and share the same backend as your online store, so offers, stock and orders are always consistent between web and mobile.
Push notifications can be timed to UTC+2 so offers reach Ghent customers when they are awake, and the interface can run in Dutch and French.
- CRM and email marketing
- Meta and TikTok catalogues
- Courier and shipping aggregators
- Accounting and GST/VAT invoicing
- WhatsApp Business API
- Google Analytics 4 and Merchant Center
- ERP and inventory software
- Payment gateways and wallets
Integrations above are examples; we connect any system that offers a suitable API, database access or approved import and export process.
Launch roadmap and success metrics
Value first, depth later. For an online store serving Ghent, the usual sequence looks like this:
| Phase | What goes live |
|---|---|
| Launch store | Storefront, catalogue, checkout, payments, shipping and admin go live. Configured for EUR, Bancontact and bpost from the start. |
| Grow | Promotions, loyalty, reviews, marketing integrations and SEO content. |
| Scale | Mobile app, marketplace feeds, multi-warehouse and ERP sync. Reviewed against how Ghent customers actually buy. |
Success is measured on conversion rate, average order value, cart abandonment, repeat-purchase rate, page speed (Core Web Vitals) and return rate — tracked on a dashboard you can see from launch day.
Time zones, language and support
Our team covers UTC+2 — 3h 30m behind India (IST) — through three 8-hour shifts, so a Ghent client always reaches someone during the local working day.
Project communication is in English; storefront content can be produced in Dutch, German and French. You get a named lead, direct engineer access and an NDA if you ask.
Our head office is in Chhapi, Gujarat, with an office in Hyderabad and representation in Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia and Zambia; Ghent clients are served remotely with on-site workshops when the project needs them.
