German B2B e-shippers less optimistic due to challenging economic environment

The majority of German B2B online and mail order companies are less optimistic for 2015 due todifficult trading conditions after a positive 2014 with higher sales and profits, according to a

The index, which reviews the business conditions of the German B2B shippers based on positiveand negative evaluations, registered a slightly pessimistic tendency in 2014 falling from 50.4 to46.0 points but it remained above the long-term average. While fewer companies assessed theircurrent business situation as good or very good, the number of negative evaluations also fell. Thenumber of companies that were dissatisfied with the financial situation in the last year remainsunchanged at the low level of less than 3%.

Business growth appears to be particularly high among larger companies as nearly three-quartersof B2B shippers with more than 100 employees gave the marks good or very good. However, the mood ofsmaller companies seems less optimistic.

When looking into the future, almost half of the companies (45.1%) surveyed described themselvesas confident, though somewhat they were less optimistic than in the previous year (52%). However,the proportion of companies that are pessimistic towards the outlook in 2015 also increased to 4.8%(1.6% in 2013).

In terms of order volumes, there is no indication of a bad mood among the B2B shippers in 2014:45.2% of the respondents recorded more orders last year than a year before while 22% registered adecline. About a third (31%) didn’t notice any significant changes. The order balance thus evenincreased to 23.4 points, up from 20.7 points in a year-on-year comparison.

In terms of revenues, a positive trend could also be observed in 2014 after evaluating positiveand negative sales reports. In 2015, however, slightly more companies expect the orders and salesrevenues to decline, compared to the last survey as the number of pessimists in this respect rosefrom 9.1% to 14%. Despite this slightly gloomier mood, B2B mail order companies are still lookingwith confidence to the coming months. Nearly every second company surveyed (46.8%) expects togenerate a sales increase this year.

“The industry will have to deal with an ever-changing business environment this year as well.The widespread use of platforms and the increasingly better comparability of individual providersare just some of the challenges ahead. The current study results show that the companies haveadapted well to the changing competitive environment,” bvh executive director ChristophWenk-Fischer said.

In terms of internationalisation, the study showed that cross-border trade has become a normalactivity of the German B2B online shippers. About three-quarters of the respondents are active inforeign markets, with the rate being especially high at nearly 90% among medium-sized and largercompanies. Among smaller companies employing up to 20 people, around 75% also export abroad.

Western European countries are, as expected, the dominant export destination, due to closeintegration of markets, the common currency and comparable customer preferences. Almost half of theactive exporters plan to expand their international sales further, bevh showed.