The German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Association (bvh) today doubled its growth forecastfor German e-commerce and overall distance-selling this year after online sales soared by 44%
during the third quarter of 2013.Between July and September, overall distance-selling revenues, covering e-commerce andtraditional mail-order sales, increased by 26.7% to €11.65 billion, according to the association’songoing representative survey of 40,000 consumers.
E-commerce revenues rose by a dramatic 44% to €9.7 billion and now account for 83.4% of thedistance-selling revenues in Germany, according to the bvh survey. The remaining €1.95 billionworth of sales were generated by the declining mail-order business.
In response, bvh has revised its initial revenue forecast for the whole year, now expectingtotal German interactive retail sales to grow by 22% to around €48 billion. In February, theassociation initially forecast 10.6% growth to €43.5 billion this year.
The new forecast for German e-commerce growth is even higher. The association now estimates thatonline retail sales will soar by 44.2% to €39.8 billion this year, compared to its initial forecastof a 21.3% rise to €33.5 billion. E-commerce sales would thus represent 83% of the totalinteractive trading market this year.
The e-commerce association explained that the upgraded full-year outlook is based on the revenuefigures of the last nine months and the experience that the average revenues during the fourthquarter tend to increase by at least 20%, boosted by the peak Christmas period.
Clothes, textiles and shoes remained the top-selling product category during the third quarterof 2013 with sales rising by 20% to € 3,885 million. Sales of media products (books, image andsound discs) more than doubled to €1,974 million from €930 million in the same period lastyear.
The third best-selling product segment, covering consumer electronics, grew by a moderate 5.6%to €982 million, according to the bvh survey. However, the product group “household appliances”fell to €594 million, down from €640 million in Q3 2012, while leisure goods increased by 5% to€578 million as the fifth top selling category.
The strongest sales distribution channels remain online marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon,Rakuten, Mercateo, MeinPaket.de etc, followed by multi-channel retailers, combinedmail-order/internet retailers and internet pure players.
The bvh survey is conducted by market researchers GIM in cooperation with ChannelAdvisor on anongoing basis throughout the year. The results are based on a survey of 40,000 consumers aged over14.
