The Top E-Commerce Companies – Key Players Dominate Top of the List

Study: EHI and Statista Examine E-Commerce Market in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Cologne/Hamburg - September 20, 2016 – E-commerce revenue in Germany has once more increased considerably in 2015. The top 100 German e-commerce companies generated €24.4bn revenue (from physical goods) in the last year. Compared to online revenue of 2014 (21.6bn euro), the market saw a 13 percent increase in revenue. These findings are the result of the “German E-Commerce Market 2016” study*.

Once again, the top 3 e-commerce companies account for the lion’s share of German online revenue: Amazon.de (€7.8bn), Otto.de (€2.3bn), and Zalando (€1.0bn) together generate revenue of more than €11bn – this almost equals the sum of revenues created by the stores on rank 4 to 100. This high concentration of revenue-raising capacity has increased over the past couple of years.

Industry Shooting Stars Have Significant Effect on Market Dynamic

Notwithstanding the dominance of the top 3 companies with regard to market share in revenue, there has been some movement in the online market after all. Some existing stores were accordingly able to rank higher than before such as Mediamarkt.de, which rose from rank 30 to 18 with a €218.9m revenue, and Saturn.de, which rose from rank 51 to 33 with a revenue of €143.6m. In addition, some shooting stars of the industry ranked high, too. The Otto Group is one of the fast climbers among Germany’s top online stores by revenue: Aboutyou.de jumped to rank 70 about one and a half years after the formation of the company with an annual revenue of almost €70m along with Hellofresh.de, an entrant to the top 100 from the food sector. The food delivery service made it to rank 63 at a revenue of €84.5m. However, it is still beaten by Hawesko.de – the wine delivery service ranked 57 in the list with a €91.5m revenue.

Food among the Top 100

For the first time, two online retailers with a focus on food are among the top 100. The majority of this year’s examined companies, however, is still made up of online department stores and fashion stores: 29 shops do not have a distinct focus on one market segment and 20 stores mainly sell clothing, home textiles, and shoes. The computer, consumer electronics, and telecommunications sector is the third most important one with 12 online retailers. The remaining German high-revenue stores focus on 15 different industries such as drugstore items and cosmetics, household appliances, furniture and decoration, eyeglasses, toys, and pet supplies. Online pharmacies secured a foothold in this ranking with a total of five retailers from this sector: Docmorris.de (rank 14), Sanicare.de (rank 26), Medikamente-per-klick.de (rank 55), Shop-apotheke.com (rank 60), and Shop.apotal.de (rank 76).

E-Commerce in the Alpine Countries

In Austria and Switzerland, too, more and more stores focusing on new segments are among the top 100 online stores. With regard to e-commerce revenue growth, a similar trend as in Germany can be detected. Austrian online revenue rose by 9.9 percent to €2.0bn compared with the previous year. Here, too, Amazon.at (€551.6m) is leading the race. Zalando.at (€150.8m) and Universal.at (€117.2m euro) come a close second and third. In Switzerland, the revenue generated by the top 100 online stores rose to CHF 4.8bn (€4.5bn). Digitec.ch is the front runner with a CHF 640.1m (€599.6m) revenue. It is followed by Zalando.ch at CHF 424.3m (€397.5m) and Amazon.de with an e-commerce revenue of CHF 400.4m (€375.1m). Zalando was therefore able to rank higher and score a second place in the top 100 of both countries.  

The complete list of the 100 online stores with the highest revenue in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is an extract from a study performed by EHI and Statista, which is available free of charge as both an infographic and iBusiness poster. The “German E-Commerce Market 2016” study, which examines the 1,000 online stores with the highest revenue, will be released on October 25, 2016. “E-Commerce Market Austria/Switzerland 2016” will be available from November 23. This October, Statista will furthermore launch ecommerceDB.com, a portal that brings together revenue data from more than 5,000 online stores worldwide.

Further information on the winners and losers of the German online retail industry will be presented by Mr Marco Atzberger, member of EHI’s management board at the Neocom Congress on October 13, 2016.