Temu has grown by an average of 530% per year since 2022. Shein by 74.5%. In 2026 that growth drops to 13.4% and 6.5% respectively. That is not a small cooldown. That is an entire strategy hitting its limit. And it is exactly the moment when positioning your e-commerce brand becomes worth more than the lowest price.
I ran my own e-commerce brand before I started building them for others. Six years of Oase, 200+ five-star reviews, and across all those years one recurring pattern: the sellers who struggle most are the sellers who only have a price. No story, no reason, no brand. Just a number that can always be undercut by someone else. What worked for years as a growth engine, being cheaper than the rest, is now visibly faltering. This article shows why, and what it means concretely for the choices you make this month.
The cheapest growth machines of the decade are stalling
Start with the two brands that pushed the cheap model to its limit. ECDB's Global eCommerce Outlook 2026 predicts Shein will grow just 6.5% in 2026, against a ten-year average of 74.5%. Temu just 13.4%, against an average of 530% since 2022. In absolute revenue they still grow, but the growth rate that carried their whole proposition is falling away. ECDB CEO Friedrich Schwandt is explicit about it: Shein and Temu flourished in a unique period of deregulation, and 2026 is their hardest year yet.
Note the word deregulation. The cause is not that a competitor beats them on price. The cause is structural: the de-minimis exemptions that let cheap parcels cross the border without import duty are being scrapped, and fees in their core markets are rising. The foundation under ultra-low prices is crumbling. Whoever has only a price has nothing left once that price can no longer be kept artificially low.
For a Dutch seller competing on marketplaces, that is a warning and an opportunity at once. The warning: if even the companies that perfected the cheap game hit their ceiling, it is naive to think you will hold out longer with the same strategy. The opportunity: the market is correcting towards quality and brand, and there is an advantage to be taken for whoever chooses now. Read also why a brand is not a logo but a position, because that distinction becomes decisive over the coming year.
Zeeman proves it on the high street: cheap alone is not enough
This is not an exclusively online story. In late May 2026 it emerged that Zeeman is closing 150 stores in Europe, withdrawing from Austria and Portugal, and booked a net loss of 12.5 million euro over 2025. Zeeman has for decades been the embodiment of honestly cheap. If that model is under pressure, it is under pressure everywhere.
The conclusion frank.news draws is exactly the core of this article: being cheap alone is no longer enough. At the bottom of the market there is always someone cheaper, and that someone now comes from a factory that delivers straight to the consumer. A European retailer cannot win that game on price. What remains as defensible ground is everything that is not a number: trust, recognisability, quality, a reason to come back.
For you as a webshop owner, Zeeman is a mirror. Ask yourself: if tomorrow I can no longer use my price as my main argument, what is left? For many webshops the honest answer is: not much. The same generic product photos, the same dropshipping catalogue, the same tone as ten others. That is not a brand, that is a pass-through. And a pass-through competes on price by definition, because there is nothing else to choose. Positioning your e-commerce brand is precisely what solves that problem: it gives the customer an argument other than price.
70% fails the standard: cheap hides a quality problem
There is a second layer under the cheap model that becomes visible in 2026. When Testaankoop and the Dutch Consumers' Association ran a broad sample of products from Temu and Shein, around 70% turned out not to meet the applicable EU standards. These were not small details: short-circuit risks and toxic substances were found. NOS and VRT reported on it extensively.
That figure does more than disqualify a few products. It changes how consumers view the whole category. Cheap becomes associated with risk, no longer only with a bargain. And once that association sets in, room opens up for brands that send the opposite signal: this is safe, this is checked, this is right. You cannot give that signal with a price. You give it with your brand, your presentation and your proof.
Here lies a direct opportunity for Dutch private-label sellers. If the market learns that the very cheapest options often fail inspection, then demonstrable quality becomes a selling point instead of a given. A listing that shows a product is tested, certified and considered beats a listing that only shouts a lower price. That starts with product pages that build trust instead of just dumping specifications. Quality you do not show does not count for the buyer.
The market is still growing, but it is dividing on quality
The counterargument I often hear: yes, but isn't the whole e-commerce market cooling down? That is not true. ING expects e-commerce to grow 7% in 2026, the fastest-growing segment within retail, against 4.5% for total retail. Online revenue is therefore still growing, about one and a half times as fast as the high street.
At the same time the number of webshops is falling. A small group of the largest webshops now takes a disproportionate share of revenue. Combine those two facts and you get a clear picture: a growing pot of money divided among ever fewer, ever more professional players. That is not a shrinking market. That is a consolidating market. And in a consolidating market the question is not whether there is still room, but whether you are among the players taking room or among the players slowly being pushed out.
What determines which side you are on? Not your price, because the winners are rarely the cheapest. What the winners share is that they have built a recognisable brand that customers remember and find again. They do not have to win every sale anew with the lowest price, because part of their customer base already knows why they come back. That is the difference between revenue you have to buy again every month and revenue that compounds. Positioning your e-commerce brand is what makes that compounding effect possible.
What makes consumers pay twice as much in 2026
Now the positive evidence, because this is not a story about fear. Kantar BrandZ put the 30 most valuable Dutch brands in 2026 at a combined value of 115.8 billion dollars, a rise of 22% in one year. That growth is even accelerating, because last year it was 19%. And the explanation Kantar gives is not a price story: 60% of those brands are seen by consumers as meaningfully different, and exactly those brands command a willingness to pay roughly twice as much. Bol.com is in the list at 1.3 billion dollars.
Read that figure again. Not a few percent more, not ten percent more: twice as much. That is the price meaning commands in the market. And it is exactly the opposite of the cheap model. Where Temu and Shein stall because their only argument falls away, the brands that have a reason that is not about price grow the fastest in value. The same market, two opposite movements.
For a webshop at marketplace or D2C scale, you do not have to be Booking.com to use this principle. The mechanism scales down. A niche brand that is meaningfully different in its category, for a specific customer, with a clear story and consistent execution, captures the same effect at smaller scale: higher margin, less discount pressure, more repeat purchases. The question is not whether branding pays off. Kantar now measures in euros that it does. The question is whether you make that choice before your category saturates.
E-commerce brand positioning starts with a choice, not a discount
So much for the figures. Now the translation to your webshop, because a trend is only useful when it changes your behaviour. Positioning sounds abstract, but at its core it is one concrete choice: who are you best for, and at what? Not for everyone, not at everything. A brand that is for everyone is best for no one, and so competes on price again. The choice to not be something is what makes room to become indispensable to a specific customer.
That choice is free, but hard, because it excludes something. And precisely for that reason most sellers do not make it. They keep all options open, aim at the whole market, and end up with a generic offer that can only win on price. The real reason many webshops do not convert sits largely here: the problem is not the technology or the design, but the absence of a sharp reason to choose this product in particular. Visitors who see no reason compare on the only thing left, the price, and buy from the cheapest.
A strong positioning turns that around. It gives the visitor a decision criterion other than price: this brand understands my situation, this product fits who I want to be, this feels trustworthy. As soon as those criteria come into play, you have stepped out of the direct price comparison. That is not a marketing trick, it is a strategic position. And it is the only position that holds up in a market where the price is always undercut by someone. If you want to know how a brand concept relates to its execution, our explanation of brand strategy where the concept comes from a human and AI executes helps.
On marketplaces your listing is your only brand moment
A fair objection: on Bol or Amazon I have no house style, no homepage, no control over the environment? True. And that is exactly why every square centimetre you do have counts double. On a marketplace your listing is not one of your brand moments, it is often the only one. The buyer sees no brand world, no story on your website, no packaging before ordering. He sees your photos, your title, your bullets and your reviews. That is your whole brand, compressed into a few screens.
That changes how you look at marketplace content strategy. It is not only filling in what the algorithm asks, it is your only chance to give a reason to choose you in a row of 200 lookalikes. The cheap players fill that space with generic factory photos and a keyword-stuffed title. There is light between you and them. A listing that radiates a recognisable visual language, a consistent tone and a clear promise reads as a brand instead of an offer. And a brand tolerates a higher price, an offer does not.
The good thing is that this ground now lies undefended. While the price fighters hit their ceiling and cheap tools rewrite listing copy at scale, the brand layer underneath stays empty. A tool can rewrite your text, but does not know your brand: it does not know who you are best for, which tone fits you, which image makes your promise true. That is precisely the difference between a listing that joins in and a listing that chooses. On marketplaces where everyone compares on price, a recognisable brand is the only thing that interrupts the comparison.
Start here: three choices that make positioning concrete
Strategy without a first step stays a poster on the wall. Three concrete choices you can make this month, without rebuilding your whole brand first.
First choice: pick one category or customer type where you want to be the best, and write in one sentence why a customer belongs with you there and not with the cheapest. If that sentence does not come, you do not have your positioning yet, and you immediately know where the work lies. A good sentence is concrete and excludes something: "for beginning home baristas who do not want an expensive machine but do want real espresso" is usable, "for everyone who loves coffee" is not.
Second choice: make your product pages the proof of that promise, not just the shop window. If your promise is quality and reliability, then show it with real photos, with the details a cheap competitor leaves out, with certification or test results where relevant. In a market where 70% of the cheapest options fail inspection, demonstrable quality is an argument that sells. A considered listing and product presentation is not a cost but the place where your positioning starts to make money.
Third choice: make it consistent across all channels. Your Bol listing, your own webshop, your packaging and your imagery should tell the same recognisable story. Consistency is what turns a single sale into a brand that sticks, and it is precisely what a tool does not do for you, because a tool does not know your choice. That is where branding as a strategic investment begins, not as a sauce added afterwards. Cheap was the easiest route to growth for six years. In 2026 it is the most expensive, because it costs you the one thing that produces margin: a reason to choose you.
