Selling in Romania and the Netherlands: what actually differs
Two European markets, two completely different sets of expectations. What travels between them and what does not.
From the outside, two EU countries look like one market with two languages. From inside a checkout, they are barely the same business. The differences are not preferences — they are habits with money behind them.
How people pay
In the Netherlands, iDEAL is not a payment option, it is the default. A store without it does not read as a store. In Romania, a large share of buyers still choose cash on delivery, and removing it removes real orders — not because cards do not work, but because trust in a first-time shop is built differently.
How things arrive
Both markets moved to parcel lockers faster than most of Europe, but for different reasons and through different networks. What matters technically is the same in both: the locker has to be selectable at checkout, and the label has to be generated from the order. A courier integration that stops at "print a PDF" leaves the work with the merchant.
What the state requires
This is where the two diverge most. Romania mandates structured electronic invoicing, with deadlines and fines. The Netherlands has no equivalent B2C obligation, and the wider European deadline is years away. A platform that treats invoicing as one feature for both markets is either doing too much in one place or not enough in the other.
What travels
- The catalogue. Products, variants and images move without friction.
- The return right. Fourteen days applies in both, from the same EU directive.
- The expectation of a working mobile experience — in both markets most traffic is a phone.
What does not
- Payment habits, and therefore your checkout.
- Invoicing obligations.
- The marketplace that matters: bol in the Netherlands, eMAG in Romania.
- Price expectations for shipping — free-over thresholds sit at very different levels.