08.10.2015 German Online shops with many touchpoints are more successful

German Online shops with many touchpoints are more successful

Study: Statista and EHI examined the e-commerce market in Germany

 

Hamburg / Cologne, 08.10.2015 The German E-commerce market has been growing steadily. In 2014, the top 1,000 online stores recorded a total revenue of approximately 32.7 billion euros *; which corresponds to a market growth of 9 percent compared to the previous year. This is one of the key takeaways from the “E-commerce market in Germany” ranking, jointly published by Statista and EHI, which ranks the leading 1,000 online stores within the country.  "We were surprised to see that the online shops with multiple touchpoints have, on average, grown the fastest. As a result, Omni-channel presents itself as a successful model for former Online-Pure-Players ", concluded Lars Hofacker, Head of E-commerce Research at EHI.

 

Dynamic and diverse

The already high market concentration in e-commerce has continued to rise. 38.1 percent of the total revenue generated by the leading 1,000 online retailers is derived by only 10 companies. The top 100 stores make up two-thirds and the top 500 generate 86.8 percent of the market’s overall revenue. Thus, the sales mix of the German e-commerce market is representative of the long-tail model.

Despite its high concentration, the market still leaves room for further development; especially in regards to smaller vendors displaying high nominal growth. Several fast-growing online shops were able to crack the Top 100.  About one-fifth of online shopping providers recently entered the ranking, albeit within the last 500 places.

General retailers make up about 40.5 percent of the sales share, which amounts to approximately 13.2 billion euros. Fashion vendors generate about 5.9 billion euros or 17.9 percent of total sales and online consumer electronics retailers, 12 percent respectively. Other specialist vendors account only for single-digit revenue shares.

 

Flexible and mobile

Nearly two-thirds of online shops use multiple channels whereas POP’s with mobile implementation constitute for the final third. Mobile websites and apps have established themselves on the market - 63.4 per cent of the top 1,000 have adjusted their online store for mobile devices. The mobile segment is the strongest distribution channel in Germany even more so than brick-and-mortar shops, which are operated by more than half of all retailers. What is surprising is that approximately 40 percent of surveyed Pure-Online-Players do not offer the customer a mobile optimized website or app.

 

"The seventh edition of the study has now established itself as the standard in the market - the supplied Excel file that contains the details for each of the 1,000 top-selling online shops, offers the unique opportunity for in-depth individual market analysis. “The study provides the possibility for further analysis using 170 shop characteristics, including information about traffic, apps, payment options, shop reviews, delivery methods, social media, distribution channels within the shop, and contact details", says Hubertus Bitting, Executive Director of Research & Analysis of the Statista GmbH.

 

* Notes and Methodology

The details of the study are based on a merchant survey (EHI) and extrapolations of Statista based on regression analysis, as well as corporate information from annual reports, press releases and corporate websites. B2C online shops were the focus of this investigation. Considered have been sales of physical goods. Sales of digital goods such as apps and streaming services from shops e.g. Apple, iTunes and Spotify were not considered.

Companies which operate multiple online shops were individually analyzed.

Definition E-commerce sales: Net sales for the respective online shops in 2014, adjusted for returns, excluding value added tax, and only from the pure business of online shops (excluding other operating income of the company).

 

Contact

Ela Dietrich, Senior Licensing Manager, Statista, Tel .: +49 (0) 40/6 88 93 12-93, ela.dietrich@statista.com

Ute Holtmann, Head of Public Relations, EHI, Tel .: +49 (0) 2 21/5 79 93-42, holtmann@ehi.org

 

Publisher

Statista GmbH, Johannes-Brahms-Platz 1, 20355 Hamburg, www.statista-research.com

Tel .: +49 (0) 40/41 34 98 9-0

EHI Retail Institute e. V., Spichernstraße 55, 50672 Cologne, www.ehi.org

Tel .: +49 (0) 2 21/5 79 93-0

 

About the EHI

 

The EHI Retail Institute is a research, training and consultancy institute for the retail industry and its partners with approximately 60 employees. The international EHI network comprises around 700 member companies from the retail, consumer and capital goods industries. The company was founded in 1951. The managing director is Michael Gerling. The GS1 Germany, is a 50 percent subsidiary of EHI and the brand association, which coordinates the procurement of Global Trading Item Number (GTIN, ehem. EAN) in Germany. In cooperation with EHI the Messe Dusseldorf hosted the Euro Store, the world's leading capital goods exhibition for trade and EuroCIS, where the latest products, solutions and trends in IT and security technology are presented.

 

 

About Statista

Statista.com is one of the leading statistic portals, headquartered in Hamburg, with further offices in Frankfurt, Berlin, New York, London and Madrid (2016). The portal has more than 3.5 million users every month. About 200 employees are working on the platform, including database experts, editors and statisticians. The company was selected in 2008 as the Start-up of the year, the same year received the prestigious Founder's Award of Financial Times Germany and was elected 2010 as a place of innovation and named European winner of Red Herring Award. In 2012, Statista was among the finalists of the German Founders Price.

In addition Statista offers with Statista Research & Analysis (www.statista-research.com) a research and analysis services and an infographic service that provides data storage and visualization from a single source.