Online sales of goods in Germany will grow about 15% this year despite the impact of the recession,and thus continue to generate new B2C volumes for the express and parcels sector, according to a
new survey.The overall German distance selling market, covering traditional mail-order and online sales,is likely to grow only 1.7% to €29.1 billion in 2009 based on stable consumer spending, the initialresults of a survey commissioned by the German distance selling association BVH found. Theindustry’s share of overall retail sales will increase slightly to 7.4% from 7.2% in 2008.
Revenues from online sales of goods, however, are likely to rise about 15% this year to €15.4billion, thus overtaking the traditional mail-order business. About 53% of the German distancesales are expected to be generated online compared to 46.9% last year. The growth rate is thussignificantly slower than the 23% growth registered last year but still a healthy double-digitincrease.
A further €6.4 billion will be spent online purchasing digitalised products or services(files, tickets, travel, etc.), an 8.5% increase on last year. Total private e-commerce spending inGermany will thus rise about 13% to €21.8 billion this year from €19.3 billion in 2008.
“The industry is being strongly powered by the internet and so it can grow in contrast to thegeneral retail trend,” commented BVH president Dieter Junghans at the association’s recent annualpress conference. “More and more companies are opening their own online shops and thus generatingadditional revenues. The distance selling sector is becoming more and more online retailing.”
In terms of demand, clothes/textiles/shoes (€13.4 billion revenues in 2008) remain the majorcategory, although sales could fall up to 5% this year. Sales of books/CDs/DVDs (2008 revenues of€2.9 billion) are likely to be stable this year. Sales of ‘entertainment electronics’ (€2.1 billionrevenues in 2008) could drop up to 10% due to lower demand. Growth product groups could include ‘computers and accessories’, ‘household equipment’ and ‘medications’, according to the survey.
The representative survey by TNS Infratest questioned 15,000 Germans between January and Juneon their distance-selling habits, and will survey a further 15,000 persons in the second half ofthe year for the full survey.
