Stores instead of online shops: According to a survey, the boom in online shopping in Germany spurred by the corona pandemic has ended. The proportion of those who do at least half of their shopping online fell from around a third (32 percent) in 2022 to 26 percent, said Postbank, which is part of the Deutsche Bank Group, based on answers from 3,038 adults in August current year. However, the proportion is still higher than in 2019 (24 percent), the year before the outbreak of the corona pandemic in Germany.
The average proportion of purchases made via the Internet fell for the second time in a row: from a high of 38 percent in 2021 to 35 percent in 2022 to 30 percent in the current year. In 2019 it was 29 percent.
“Shopping behavior is returning to normal after the end of the Corona restrictions and the catch-up effect is playing into the hands of retail,” said Postbank’s head of digital sales, Thomas Brosch. “Especially for younger people, online shopping has become indispensable.” According to the survey, the proportion of those aged 18 to 39 who do at least some of their shopping online is significantly higher at 37 percent those over 40 years old (26 percent).
Overall, around half of online shoppers have stated in the regularly conducted “Postbank Digital Study” for years that they only order products online that they are relatively certain they will not return. More than 80 percent have said for years that they would like it if online retailers were legally prohibited from destroying goods returned by customers.
Because: Not all returns are resold, this is especially the case with clothing. The EU Commission recently put a stop to this practice: Larger retailers will no longer be allowed to destroy unsold clothing in the European Union in the future. Small and micro-enterprises are exempt from this ban; a transition period of six years applies to medium-sized companies. In principle, the ban should be applied two years after the regulation comes into force. (dpa)