Marketing in NorwayWhat does a foreign company have to do differently in Norway?
From the outside, Norway looks like an easy market: wealthy and digital, and everyone seems to speak English. Then you try to sell something there. Norwegians still buy mostly in physical stores, pay online more and more often by phone and order cheap goods from Temu in huge numbers, while for things that matter, they'd rather choose something Norwegian. Miss that, and you end up translating the approach that works at home and wondering why it doesn't work here.
I was born in the Netherlands, moved to Norway and work in both markets. Below is what recent Norwegian research shows, what has changed since the pandemic and where I'd start.
What has changed since the pandemic?
Five things, and together they make Norway a different market than it was in 2019. Online shopping got a huge push, paying moved to the phone, social media shifted and the rules for parcels from abroad got stricter. Only the physical store stayed where it was.
| What | Around 2020 | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Norwegian online stores | Explosive growth during the lockdowns | Growing faster than physical stores again in 2025 |
| Shopping across the border | Came to a halt in March 2020 | Just below pre-pandemic levels |
| Paying online by phone | About 1 in 4 (2021) | 37% (2026) |
| Daily on TikTok | 8% (end of 2020) | 19% (end of 2023) |
| Parcels from abroad | Under NOK 350 with no declaration | Taxed from the first krone outside VOEC |
How it got here is the interesting part. In 2020, retail grew by double digits. After that, Norwegians spent their money on services and trips abroad again, and inflation ate into their purchasing power. Only in 2025 did volume grow again: by 4.2%, on turnover of NOK 637 billion. According to the trade association NHO Service og Handel, that shift toward services and shopping abroad had largely run its course by 2025.
Source: NHO Service og Handel, Tall og trender 2026: Handel, March 17, 2026 (in Norwegian).
Why is the physical store still so important in Norway?
Because Norwegians still buy most things there. About 80% of the goods Norwegians buy, they buy in a Norwegian physical store. That share is falling, but slowly.
Being in both channels pays. In its 2023 retail report, Virke, the Norwegian employers' organization for retail and services, found that the most profitable retailers were present both online and in physical stores. Many Norwegians research a product online first, whether they then buy it in a store or online.
What that means for you: show a Norwegian where they can see, pick up or return your product. A Norwegian pickup or return address does more than a faster delivery promise. What this means for getting found is in my comparison of the Netherlands and Norway.
Sources: NHO Service og Handel for the share of physical stores and Virke on its retail report, September 21, 2023, both in Norwegian.
How do Norwegians pay online?
More and more often by phone. According to Norges Bank, Norway's central bank, more than one in three online purchases are now paid through a mobile payment platform such as Vipps. In its report on 2021, that was about one in four.
| Payment method | Report on 2021 | 2026 survey |
|---|---|---|
| Card, directly | Under half | 37% |
| Mobile, such as Vipps | About a quarter | 37% |
| Invoice, such as Klarna | Under a quarter | 22% |
Whatever your customers use at home, don't assume it works here. BankAxept, the Norwegian debit card system, can't be used for regular online purchases. So a Norwegian customer expects Vipps at checkout, alongside a regular payment card and often an invoice option. If Vipps is missing, they notice.
Sources: Norges Bank, Retail payment services 2025, June 2026, and Retail payment services 2021, 2022.
Do you need to sort out Norwegian VAT as a foreign online store?
Yes, and it may be the most important point in this article. If you're not registered in Norway's VOEC scheme, your parcel is stopped at the border, and your customer pays VAT on delivery, often plus a customs clearance fee from the carrier.
That applies to every online store outside Norway, including stores in the EU. Norway isn't an EU member.
Until the end of 2023, parcels under NOK 350 came in without a declaration. Since January 1, 2024, that exemption is gone. Anything that doesn't go through VOEC is taxed from the first krone.
With VOEC, you charge Norwegian VAT, 25% on most goods, at your own checkout. The parcel clears customs smoothly, and the customer pays nothing extra at the door. The scheme covers goods under NOK 3,000 per item, sold to consumers, and those goods are also exempt from customs duties. Food, drink and supplements aren't covered. You must register once you've sold NOK 50,000 or more to Norwegian consumers in twelve months, and you can register from your first sale.
This is also why Temu and Shein get through so smoothly: they're registered. A foreign online store that isn't starts with a disadvantage that has nothing to do with marketing.
I'm not a tax advisor, and I'm not a customs specialist either. I'm happy to help you figure out what applies to you and what to ask, and I've checked what's here against the official sources. But rules change. Before you start selling, have your situation checked by someone who specializes in Norwegian VAT and customs.
Sources: the Norwegian Tax Administration on shopping from foreign online stores and on registration in the VOEC Register.
What do Temu and Shein mean for you?
That you won't win on the lowest price in Norway. The flow of cheap parcels has exploded since 2024.
The Norwegian research institute NORSUS calculated that clothing imports through VOEC grew from 3,849 metric tons in 2024 to 13,961 metric tons in 2025, an increase of 263%. By those figures, one in every seven kilos of textiles entering Norway now comes straight from foreign online stores. Norwegian customs counted more than 11 million parcels from such platforms in 2025.
In a poll by Sentio, 63% of Norwegians say they've bought from Temu. Weigh that figure: the poll was commissioned by Framtiden i våre hender, an environmental organization that campaigns against these platforms.
Politics is moving too. In June 2026, the Norwegian parliament asked the government to look into customs duties and a control fee on low-value parcels. That's according to Framtiden i våre hender itself. Expect the rules for cheap parcels to change in the coming years, including for you.
Sources: Framtiden i våre hender on the NORSUS figures, May 19, 2026, Framtiden on the Sentio poll, NRK on the customs figures, September 2026 and Framtiden on the budget agreement, June 7, 2026, all in Norwegian.
Do Norwegians really prefer to buy Norwegian?
Yes, but not at any price. That's the nuance most foreign companies miss.
In June 2025, the Norwegian consumer research institute SIFO asked how Norwegians buy food. 59% say they prefer Norwegian food even when it's more expensive. But very few are willing to pay much more for it. They stretch furthest for seasonal products like strawberries and lamb; for everyday groceries, price counts.
Crises strengthen that preference. In March 2022, after the pandemic and at the start of the war in Ukraine, Norstat found that 78% preferred to buy Norwegian food and drink, 13 percentage points more than a few months earlier. Weigh that figure too: the survey was done for the Norwegian dairy information office.
These figures are about food. They do match what I see more broadly: a Norwegian supplier starts with a head start, and a foreign one has to make up for it with visible proximity. A Norwegian address, Norwegian customer service and copy that doesn't read as translated. Don't hide that you're foreign. Just make it clear that you're there.
Sources: OsloMet on the SIFO survey, August 26, 2025 and press release from Opplysningskontoret for Meieriprodukter on the Norstat survey, May 12, 2022, both in Norwegian.
Where do you reach Norwegians?
Still most broadly on Facebook, but the growth is on Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok. And in Norwegian news media, which play a bigger role there than many foreign advertisers think.
| Platform | End of 2020 | End of 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| 67% | 65% | |
| Snapchat | 44% | 52% |
| 36% | 43% | |
| YouTube | 26% | 28% |
| TikTok | 8% | 19% |
Snapchat is the striking number. In the Ipsos figures it's second only to Facebook, and among 18- to 29-year-olds it's the most used platform of all. I often see Dutch advertisers skip it, because it plays a smaller role in the Netherlands. For an audience under 30 in Norway, that's a missed opportunity.
The second channel I often see skipped is Norwegian news sites. 77% of Norwegians read at least one newspaper a day, and 71% of newspaper circulation is now fully digital. For 2025, the ad market analyst IRM forecast the total Norwegian advertising market at about NOK 28.5 billion.
Sources: Ipsos SoMe-tracker Q4 2023 and newsletter from Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, September 2025, both in Norwegian.
What language should you advertise in?
In Norwegian, unless your audience is young and your product wants to sound international. Even though Norwegians read English well.
In a 2019 survey by Opinion for Språkrådet, the Language Council of Norway, about half of Norwegians were negative about English in advertising. Among those over 50, it was 65%. That figure is from before the pandemic, and I know it through Riksmålsforbundet, an organization that promotes the Norwegian language. So take it as a direction, not a measurement.
It does match what I see. English works for young audiences and for fashion. Where a purchase depends on trust, it works against you. What a good Norwegian text takes is in my article on translation vs. localization, and the choice between Bokmål and Nynorsk is in my comparison of the Netherlands and Norway.
Source: Riksmålsforbundet on the Opinion survey for Språkrådet (in Norwegian).
Where do you start?
With the things that stop a Norwegian customer at checkout, not with your ads. This is the order I follow.
- Register for VOEC, and show your prices in kroner, including VAT.
- Offer Vipps, alongside a payment card and an invoice option.
- Make proximity visible: a Norwegian return address, Norwegian customer service and a business profile that belongs to that country.
- Have your copy localized, not translated, and collect reviews where Norwegians look. Which platforms those are is in the review section of my Netherlands and Norway comparison.
- Only then test channels: Meta and Google, plus Snapchat or Norwegian news sites if your audience is there. Measure what a customer costs you from day one.
How I handle that in practice is on my pages about marketing localization and performance marketing.
What doesn't a good Norwegian approach fix?
A product without a reason to buy it in Norway. You won't beat Temu on price, or a Norwegian competitor on proximity. If you can't say why a Norwegian should buy from you in particular, no translation or campaign will help.
Thinking about Norway?
Email me what you sell and how you approach your home market now. I'll tell you what I think needs to change, before you have anything translated.
Dominique@framvekst.noYou'll hear back within three business days.
See my contact details