Every seventh euro that people in Germany spent on clothing, food, electronics and furniture last year ended up in the tills of online retailers. Leaving aside groceries, Amazon and its rivals even secured a fifth of the money, as the industry association BEVH announced on Thursday. Online trading is booming, especially during the pandemic.
“E-commerce is increasingly being perceived as normal and customary. Its growth is stabilizing at a high level,” says BEVH President Gero Furchheim. In the exceptional state of the pandemic, digital trade conveys a sense of normality with the secure supply of goods. “Trade without e-commerce is already unthinkable, neither for consumers nor for retailers.”
The old rule that online trading is mainly used by younger people no longer applies since the beginning of the pandemic. Buyers aged 50 and over were responsible for at least half of all online purchases in 2021, reports the BEVH. And the proportion of “satisfied” and “very satisfied” online buyers has reached a record high of 96.3 percent.
So it’s no wonder that online retail is expecting the boom to continue this year. The association assumes that sales of goods will grow by a further 12 percent to more than 110 billion euros. And in the years that follow, the industry expects growth rates of more than 10 percent.
The euphoria in online retail stands in dramatic contrast to the situation of many fashion, shoe and electronics retailers in the pedestrian zones and shopping centers, which are suffering from a lack of customers and a slump in sales.
Chains like Douglas, Media Markt, Saturn, or Ikea are trying to assert themselves against the competition with their own online shops – some with great success. In a list by the EHI trading institute of the 100 largest German online shops, Media Markt, Saturn, Ikea and Hennes & Mauritz were among the top 10 providers with the highest sales – at a clear distance from the leader Amazon. Others such as C&A (83rd place) and Galeria (90th place) also ranked below ran.
Germany’s largest furniture retailer Ikea was able to more than double its online sales and increase the online share of sales to 34.3 percent. Nevertheless, under the pressure of online competition, the furniture giant lost market share for the first time in a long time.
Germany’s largest perfumery chain Douglas (21st place) was able to largely compensate for the pandemic-related decline in the branch business of around 19 percent in the 2020/21 financial year thanks to an increase in sales of almost 50 percent to 1.2 billion euros in online trading.
But by no means all well-known retail chains are so successful. Germany’s last major department store chain, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, has so far not been able to compensate for the pandemic-related losses in its stores with its own online business.
This is especially true for many smaller retailers. They have a double problem: Firstly, it is difficult for them to be noticed on the Internet at all. Secondly, the price war is even tougher than in the store because of the easy comparison options.
For many, the best strategy seems to be to offer their own goods on a marketplace such as Amazon or Ebay. According to the BEVH, a good half of online sales in 2021 will come from marketplaces. But the competition is great here too.
Survival is also made more difficult for classic retailers by the fact that more and more manufacturers are using online trading to bypass retailers and sell their goods directly to customers. According to the BEVH, the shipping volume of the manufacturers increased by 25.4 percent to 3.4 billion euros last year. According to a study by the management consultancy Capgemini, buying directly from the manufacturer is particularly popular with young people.
Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope for retailers in the pedestrian zones. In the same survey, 63 percent of consumers surveyed said they plan to return to brick-and-mortar shopping on a larger scale once the pandemic is over. (dpa)