When shopping online, German customers usually pay with PayPal. The online payment service has overtaken purchase on account – the leading payment method in Germany for years – for the first time in 2022 in terms of sales in e-commerce, according to a study published on Thursday by the EHI trade research institute in Cologne.
Paypal is now offered almost everywhere in retail, said study author Radoslav Raychev on the results of the EHI study “Online Payment 2023”. “Paying with Paypal is quick and convenient for customers, but not quite cheap for retailers.”
According to estimates by the EHI, net e-commerce sales in 2022 totaled around EUR 85 billion and were therefore around EUR 1 billion below the previous year’s level, not least because of the shops that were reopened after the peak of the corona pandemic.
According to EHI, a total of 29.6 percent of online purchases were paid for with Paypal, a further increase compared to the previous year when the share of the online payment service was 28.2 percent. On the other hand, purchases on account, which in the previous year held the top spot in the ranking with a share of 28.3 percent, lost significantly in importance and fell back to second place with a share of 23.8 percent.
Direct debit/direct debit (20.9 percent) came in third place among the payment methods with the highest sales in e-commerce, followed by credit cards (12.1 percent). Giropay, the joint digital payment method of German banks and savings banks, is one of the climbers in the past year and climbed from 0.4 percent to 1.6 percent. (dpa)