E-commerce in Germany posted strong double-digit growth of nearly 16% in sales of physical goods during the third quarter of 2015 with consumers increasingly buying groceries online, according to the German e-commerce and distance-selling association bevh.
Online sales of goods grew by 15.7% to €11.3 billion, with their share of the overall interactive retail sector rising to 91.5%, up from 87.7% in the second quarter, according to the association’s quarterly sales survey. The overall interactive retail sector, including the rapidly declining traditional mail-order business, increased sales by only 4% to €12.3 billion.
In addition, revenues from digital services generated €3.2 billion during the July-September 2015 quarter, up 38% from the previous year.
The highest revenues were generated by the usually strong product groups in the third quarter, with the clothing sector generating revenues worth €2.9 billion as the best-selling category, an increase of 4.3% on Q3 2014. The segment of consumer electronics and e-articles including telecommunications recorded sales of €1.9 billion, which equals a 6.9% increase. The product group ‘shoes’ kept its revenues stable at nearly the same level with €879 million, slightly up by 0.8% on the last year. Books and e-books posted a revenue decline of 20.2%, followed by furniture and decoration with revenues amounting to €721 million, down 2.8% compared to Q3 2014.
Notably, the ‘food’ product segment experienced a strong uplift, with revenues rising by 52.4% to €290 million in Q3 2015 and bevh forecasting a promising end of the year for German food retailers.
“In addition to the “classical” e-commerce categories, a particularly remarkable growth rate was registered in the ‘food’ category. This year seems to be a breakthrough in this market which has huge potential,” bevh executive director Christoph Wenk-Fischer said.
He also highlighted the increased consumers’ interest in digital services with the segment showing a strong increase of 38% in Q3 2015. “The rule that ‘anything which can be digitised will be digitised’ is confirmed by the enormous growth of digital services: electronic tickets, travel reservations online and downloads are increasingly replacing their analog predecessors.”
In terms of different e-commerce sales channels, online marketplaces recorded a strong increase of 14.4% generating the highest revenues that reached €5.27 billion in Q3 2015. In contrast, multi-channel retailers, who were the clear winners during the last quarter, posted a 3% revenue decline in Q3 2015, down to €4.26 billion. The internet pure players increased revenues by 4.3% to €1.6 billion.
Looking ahead, bevh estimates overall interactive sales will reach €51.6 billion for the whole year assuming that the Christmas forecast remains at last year’s level, with e-commerce sales to reach €46.9 billion. Should Christmas sales grow even further given the overall positive development of the industry, the annual forecast will be surpassed.
For the third year in a row, Bevh’s long-running consumer study “Interactive Trade in Germany” is featuring an updated design, in cooperation with the GIM-Society for Innovative market research, with 40,000 consumers being interviewed regarding their shopping behaviour in online and distance trade compared to 30,000 previously.
