Where do Germans prefer to shop in 2025 and where do they spend the most money? A 2025 retail centrality study by consumer intelligence firm NIQ found that this doesn’t necessarily happen on your doorstep. Consumers are drawn to places where the shopping experience is right. Medium-sized cities score points here ahead of large cities.
“Medium-sized cities are the secret stars of retail because they exert a strong attraction on their surrounding areas and benefit from inflows of purchasing power thanks to their extensive retail offerings,” says the study.
Top ten urban districts
Medium-sized cities dominate the list of the ten most attractive retail locations. Above all, Zweibrücken with its Outlet City – the city attracts more than twice as much purchasing power as it generates itself and is at the top with a retail centrality value (EZW) of 226. This results from the comparison of purchasing power and regional retail sales.
In second place is Passau with an EZW of 200, followed by Straubing, Kaiserslautern and Koblenz (195.6; 190.2; 181.4). In sixth place Ansbach (178.4) and Würzburg in seventh place (173.6). Pirmasens came in eighth place (168.2), closely followed by Hof (167.1) and Trier in tenth place (165.9).
All of the top ten cities only have between around 34,000 (Zweibrücken) and 128,000 inhabitants (Würzburg), but they attract far more purchasing power than they generate themselves – from twice as much as the leader to an impressive 66 percent more in tenth place.
Where are the big cities?
One would think that major cities, with their large and diverse range of retail options, should be ahead. But these can be widely scattered, making it inconvenient for consumers.
“While large cities have a wide range of offerings, it is primarily the medium-sized cities that attract purchasing power from the surrounding area through specialized formats such as outlets, attractive city centers and good accessibility. For retailers, this means: Those who invest in attractive medium-sized centers usually benefit from lower rents, stable sales and high customer loyalty,” comments Filip Vojtech, retail expert in NIQ’s geomarketing department, in a statement. “The results clearly show that medium-sized cities continue to play a central role in German retail,” he adds.
When it comes to total sales in stationary retail, large cities with large populations lead the way and therefore have the greatest sales potential. Berlin leads here (EZW 100.4), followed by Hamburg (106.1), Munich (110.5), Cologne (112.3) and the Hanover region (106.4). In places six to ten are Frankfurt am Main (104.9), Düsseldorf (111.0), Stuttgart (111.4), Nuremberg (118.6) and Dortmund (111.8).
If you look at the retail centrality value, these metropolitan areas only attract between just under 5 percent (Frankfurt) and almost a fifth (Nuremberg) more purchasing power than they generate, or in Berlin it is balanced.
How is retail purchasing power distributed regionally?
On average, German consumers had 6,226 euros per capita for retail spending in 2025. But this retail purchasing power is distributed very differently regionally: in 2025 it ranged from 7,952 euros in the Starnberg district to 5,254 euros in the Gelsenkirchen urban district, according to the study.
As mentioned, the Starnberg district leads the top ten in terms of retail purchasing power per inhabitant, followed by the district and urban district of Munich with amounts of 7,655 and 7,551 euros respectively. The Ebersberg district follows in fourth place (7,374 euros), followed by the Main-Taunus district (7,141 euros).
The districts of Miesbach, Hochtaunuskreis, Erlangen-Höchstadt and Dachau as well as the city district of Düsseldorf occupy places six to ten (in that order) with a retail purchasing power per inhabitant of over 7,000 euros.