Online retail is suffering much more severely than previously expected from the poor consumer sentiment in Germany. The e-commerce association BEHV revised its forecast for the full year downwards on Monday and now expects a “decline in sales of more than 5 percent” for 2023 compared to the previous year. At the beginning of the year, the association had expected growth of 4.8 percent.
“As long as people expect their real wages to fall and financial special burdens to increase, they will think carefully about every purchase. We assume that nothing will change in the near future,” said Deputy BEHV General Manager Martin Groß-Albenhausen. “Companies are fighting the crisis with all their might. But they have to recognize that consumers can hardly be persuaded to buy, even with strong offers.”
According to the BEHV, between April and June online sales of goods were 12.2 percent below the previous year’s level at a good 19 billion euros. In the first half of the year as a whole, the minus was even 13.7 percent. According to the association, the losses were particularly severe in the areas of entertainment, furnishings and clothing.
Online retailers are skeptical
With the start of the summer and holiday season in the second quarter, however, the recovery in digital services also weakened. This segment includes in particular travel and concert bookings. After the slumps of the Corona peak, there was still clear double-digit growth in the first quarter.
When looking into the future, skepticism now prevails among many online retailers. In the current BEHV member survey, only one in five participants expected to be able to put the crisis behind them in the course of the year.
Last year, gross sales of goods in e-commerce fell by 8.8 percent to 90.4 billion euros. (dpa)