E-commerce in Germany

E-commerce

E-commerce market

E-commerce is developing at a steady pace in Germany. According to German e-commerce association Bevh, the market’s total revenue in 2017 reached US$ 63.5 billion and is expected to be US$ 69.7 billion in 2018. The two biggest online stores in Germany are American giant Amazon and German founded Otto. Berlin based online clothing store Zalando comes in third place. These three actors dominate the e-commerce market in Germany. A few other stores are smaller: Notebooksbilliger, Cyberport, Bonprix, among others. In 2017, consumers bought more frequently and spent more on average than the previous year. 79% of internet users in Germany are considered online shoppers, which is a higher share than ever before. In Germany, 10% of online sales are made with smartphones. The country is the third most active market worldwide in terms of import and export e-commerce, behind the USA and the UK. In Europe, Germany ranks third for B2C online turnover, after the United Kingdom and France. Cross-borders online sales made by Germans come mainly from the USA, the UK and China, and lower prices are among the main reasons to shop from foreign websites. Moreover, Estonia benefits from a privileged relation with Germany as private distributors from both countries have developed business agreements in order to facilitate e-commerce between the two markets. 

Social media

At least 75% of internet users in Germany have an account on a social media platform and use it frequently. Facebook is by far the most popular social media in Germany, with about 32 million users (38% of the population). Instagram accounts for 9 million active users, according to the company, and is popular with people aged bewtween 14 and 29, but isn’t used much by older demographics. So far, Twitter’s use has been limited in Germany, with 5.7 million people using it in the country. The German language is made of long words and is very descriptive while Twitter only offers a limited number of characters to communicate. Google+, Linkedin and Youtube are present in the country as well but there are also homegrown social media platforms, like Xing (the German version of LinkedIn) and StudyVZ (a students’ network). It is also important to note that almost 80% of Germans say they use WhatsApp for daily communication.