Most German online retailers expect a strong revenue increase for Christmas business this yearand are increasingly selling their products abroad as well, according to two new surveys by the
country’s interactive trading association bvh.About two-thirds of companies participating in the association’s ‘Christmas business 2012’survey described their expectations as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Around 63% of the German interactivetraders surveyed expect rising revenues during the Christmas period compared to 2011 while 28.9%anticipate constant revenues.
“Compared to the previous year, our members expect an even more successful Christmas,” bvhexecutive director Christoph Wenk-Fischer commented. The survey was conducted during October andNovember 2012.
Revenues from the Christmas period are especially important for interactive traders. During the2011 holiday shopping season, 42% of the e-retailers generated between 21% and 30% of their annualrevenues from the Christmas period alone, while over 10% of the online traders made more than 30%of their revenues during the pre-Christmas period.
“The higher revenue expectations of interactive traders for this year’s holiday shopping seasonconfirm the overall development expected for the fiscal year 2012. For the full year, we expectdouble-digit revenue growth,” Martin Groß-Albenhausen, E-Commerce expert at bvh, said.
The majority of German e-retailers are again offering their customers special promotions duringthe Christmas period this year. Significantly, 18.4% are offering free delivery, according to thebvh survey.
Meanwhile, a separate survey on ‘Cross Border Sales’ conducted in cooperation with Deutsche PostDHL found that the bulk of German e-retailers already sell internationally and many others willjoin them soon.
“The survey revealed that today already 89.2% of the survey participants are represented abroad.Of the 10.8% of the companies that are not active on the international markets, 43% plan to expandto other countries in the near future,” Wenk-Fischer said.
Most of the interactive traders are active in German-speaking countries, with 84.6% in Austriaand 71.8% in Switzerland. Other popular countries for cross-border trade include France (56.4%),Netherlands (46.2%), Belgium (35.9%), UK (33.3%), Poland (28.2%), Sweden (25.6%), Denmark and Italy(both 23.1%), Norway (17.9%), Spain and Finland (15.4%) as well as Russia and Portugal (12.8%).German e-retailers are also active beyond Europe with 10.3% of those trading in USA and Canada,7.7% in Asia, 5.1% in Africa and Latin America.
Currently, 38.5% of the companies surveyed adapt their business strategy to the target country,in terms of product range, marketing and price policy. Most of the German traders (71%) employ morelocal than German staff in the target country while 20.6% keep a balance of local and Germanemployees and only 8.8% employ more German than local staff.
As the biggest market entry barrier, 67.5% of the shippers who are active abroad named legalregulations in the destination countries. About 45% consider difficulties in dispatch handling asan important obstacle and 35% cite problems with payment processing, lack of information aboutforeign markets and language barriers.
Michael Wenzelburger, Product Manager Export at Deutsche Post DHL, commented: “The surveyresults correspond to our experience from numerous discussions with customers. Especially forentering foreign markets, we offer efficient ways to tap into the respective target market fromGermany first. Services ranging from target group identification to product shipping minimise manyof the risks mentioned.”
bvh interviewed its German members during October-November 2012 on their activities andexperiences in foreign markets. The aim of the study was to identify the destination countries,strategies and market entry barriers in cross-border business and provide a differentiated look onthe international activities of the interactive trade ‘Made in Germany’.
