Online sales of goods in Germany grew 16% last year to a new record of €15.5 billion, generatingmoderate overall growth for the country’s distance-selling sector, new figures show. Double-digit
growth is again expected for e-commerce this year.Total distance-selling revenues increased by 1.7% to €29.1 billion last year, the annualsurvey by the German distance selling association BVH showed. The sector increased its share oftotal retail sales in Germany from 7.2% in 2008 to 7.4% last year, thus generating higher B2Cvolumes for express and parcels operators.
Online shopping represented 53.3% of total distance sales in 2009 compared to 46.9% in 2008.The traditional mail-order market, based on catalogue orders by post or phone, continued itsdecline with revenues dropping from €15.2 billion in 2008 to €13.6 billion last year. Totale-commerce sales, including online purchases of digital products and services, increased to €21.7billion.
“We are delighted that our annual forecast has been confirmed,” said Thomas Lipke, BVH boardmember and head of its e-commerce working group. The association now expects online sales of goodsto maintain double-digit growth rates this year, rising to €17.1 billion, and total growth of 2% to€29.7 billion for the overall distance-selling sector.
The total number of German consumers shopping online last year rose by 1.1 million to 32.5million, the survey showed. Key trends included a sharp increase in online orders from the over-60sage group, rising from 19% to 28% of their total distance-selling purchasing, and more online (53%)than offline orders from women. “We expect the internet will establish itself as THE shoppingchannel in the future for all age groups, and further growth can therefore be expected in thecoming years,” Lipke added.
In terms of goods, overall distance sales of clothes/textiles/shoes were stable with €13.4billion in revenues last year but online sales in this category rose by 11.7% to €5.2 billion.Total distance sales of books/CDs/DVDs grew 7.3% to €3.1 billion, including a 19.2% rise in onlineorders to €2.3 billion. Overall sales of ‘entertainment electronics’ dropped from €2.1 billion in2008 to €1.8 billion last year, but online sales increased 11.7% to €1.4 billion.
The representative survey by TNS Infratest questioned 30,000 Germans between January andDecember 2009 on their distance-selling habits.
