‘Low point in German ecommerce’

By: Trademagazin editor Date: 2024. 02. 02. 09:34

Online product spending in Germany has experienced a double-digit decline for the first time last year. Expenditures amounted to 79.7 billion euros, a decrease of 11.8 percent compared to the 90.4 billion in 2022, the Bundesverband E-Commerce und Versandhandel Deutschland (bevh) reported in its release titled “Ecommerce turnover reaches a low point”.

In 2022, online product expenditures had already significantly dropped by 8.8 percent compared to 2021.

The German federal association for ecommerce attributes the decline to the “lower willingness of consumers to spend money”. Last year, consumers spent less online especially on books, computers, jewelry, shoes, and clothing.

Online thriftiness

The thriftiness of German consumers is evident online, according to bevh’s data. The online revenue share in product sales in Germany decreased from 11.8 percent to 10.2 percent. This indicates that physical retailers have once again fared better than their online counterparts post-corona. However, German online consumer spending on services increased last year by 12.7 percent to 12.7 billion euros.

Improved figures

Bevh notes that online turnover figures improved over the course of the past year. While expenditures in the first quarter of 2023 declined by 15 percent, by the fourth quarter, this percentage had more than halved. After five quarters of double-digit decline, a single-digit turnover loss percentage was recorded for the first time.

Growth resumption

Spending is still decreasing, but bevh expects stabilization over the course of this year, followed by a resumption of growth in online expenditures.

In a joint forecast, bevh and the EHI Retail Institute anticipate a nominal growth of 2.0 percent for ecommerce in Germany, where Amazon is the market leader.

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