‘Orange fever’ is set to grip Tikkie again

Press release
Article tags:
  • Innovation
  • Insights

It’s almost time: on 26 April, everything in the Netherlands turns orange and we all claim a spot for the nationwide flea market. It's the day we make someone happy with stuff that didn't survive our own spring clean. It’s also the day we send and pay masses of Tikkie payment requests – for everything from beers and food to QR codes to pay for things at the flea market. It’s already impossible to imagine this festive day without the Tikkie app. Ahead of this year’s King’s Day, here’s a short recap: in 2024, the Dutch sent a whopping 612,000 Tikkies on King's Day – an increase of 24 per cent on 2023. Compared with an average day in 2024, that was 33 per cent more Tikkies and 12 times as many payments via Tikkie QR codes.

More money spent on babysitters than at the flea market On King’s Day 2024 a total of 1,668 Tikkies were paid for toilet visits – that’s 57 per cent more than in the previous year. The word toilet is more refined in the Netherlands than WC, but visiting a WC is more expensive than a toilet: a visit to the WC costs €2.27 on average, while going to the toilet is only an average of €1.83. The amounts paid for WC visits varied from 0.50 euros to 5 euros, with amounts of 1 euro and 2 euros being most common. Some Tikkie users ‘received’ hundreds of visitors to their WC in a single day, but the average number of WC visitors per Tikkie user was 16. Interestingly, more money was spent last year on babysitters for kids (€29.87) than at the flea market (€10.48). On the other hand, a total of almost €70,000 was spent on clothing; selling vintage clothing is apparently a more lucrative business than selling your old stuff.

Top 5 most popular purchases on King’s Day 2024

On King’s Day, the average amount paid via Tikkie was €31.91. That’s 33 per cent less than the average paid via Tikkies in all of 2024. People tended to use Tikkie for small payments: 23 per cent of the payments were amounts below 5 euros, versus 11 per cent on a regular day. Payments for less than 50 eurocents occurred almost twice as often as usual, and for less than one euro that was even more than four times as often. So even the smallest bargains were settled digitally at the flea market. Nevertheless, Tikkies were also used for large purchases; 40 per cent were between 10 and 25 euros (normally this is 27 per cent) and 29 per cent were more than 25 euros (normally 40 per cent). Based on the most frequently used Tikkie descriptions, we could see that the Dutch like to spend money on King's Day on:

  1. Food – anyone out and about all day needs a well-filled stomach, so meals were good for at least 18,163 transactions, with an average amount of €59.23.

  2. Beer – the Dutch love to toast to King Willem Alexander with a beer, good for at least 4,579 transactions.

  3. Pizza – the favourite snack during King's Day, good for at least 3,735 transactions.

  4. Flea market – buying items at the flea market is still a Dutch tradition, good for at least 2,593 transactions.

  5. Taxi – on King's Day, many of us love to have a beer, so it’s big business for taxis. Good for at least 2,585 transactions, with an average price of €22.71 per taxi ride.