Habits of German users in the e-commerce sector
Unlike other countries, Germany unfamiliarly achieves high quality of life at low costs.
Initially, the user should be in the first place like in all user experience processes. It is easy to say that ‘user is important’, but the difficult thing is to maintain the design process for the user. Being alert is required in details such as being open to make corrections in the process and keeping up with the development for the perfect progress of the plan. In general, if something went wrong in the business process, none of the users feel responsible for the resulting work. At this stage, you will need to take your own responsibility to make things right. The habit of thinking of what a person, community or a nation needs is an ability that should be learned and experienced.
According to the statistics of Europe, the 5th country that spends the most on the Internet and makes purchases via e-commerce is Germany. The online process is always valuable, as companies in Germany also know this behavior of German users. For this reason, they are working to make the purchasing process better. German users; It was concluded that they preferred the online shopping experience instead of the traditional and retail shopping experience. (https://www.bitkom.org/).
Moreover, we can say that Germany is the “European Champion” in e-commerce shopping. In European statistics that Germans are leading, 33% of German users prefer online stores, while only 21% prefer traditional stores (dpd.com).
Almost half of the users do not have an obvious preference when choosing the purchasing category.
Some products are especially suitable for Internet shopping. Although the online sale of clothing and accessories, shoes, books and electronic products is in parallel with many countries, unlike other countries, drugs and pharmacy products continue to be popular products for users in the German online shopping market. The e-commerce sector is growing all over Europe. Looking at these data, compared to other European countries, 36% of German users order medicines online. This statistic is more than twice the average for all European countries (dpd.com). Especially people aged 55 and over; prefer to buy pharmaceutical products and medicines online.
The category of pharmacy and medicine, which is among the most demanded categories, is followed by the fashion category and books. German users tend to their favorite sellers on online platforms (amazon & ebay). In the purchasing process; German users make decisions for themselves faster than other users.
For example; A Norwegian can choose shoes in 10 minutes. In France, the situation is different: On average, the French spend 4 hours on fashion and shoes. If we compare it with other users, this brings German users to the top.
Most of the users are now shopping via smartphones. Especially the younger generation; considering their activeness in product sharing, recommending and commenting, and when they include their friends in this process, the statistics increase even more. (de.statista.com)
Germans are pragmatic and enjoy bargaining. When it comes to the buying behavior of the Germans; firstly, German buyers want to save money. This behavior is actually not prejudice, but more. Pepper.com conducted a study comparing product prices on Amazon and the top 10 e-commerce countries and showed the results. Looking at the results, prices in Germany are almost the same as other countries.
Germans behave quite pragmatically if they decide to buy.
(www.bitkom.org)
German users pay attention to 3 basic elements;
- Low price,
- Saving of time
- More options.
65% of users follow discount and coupon codes to save more Euros. (www.bitkom.org)
Although there is such an active online shopping audience; the e-commerce sector in Germany has recently decreased by 9% because of the Ukraine War. As another possibility, the reason for the decline in online sales is also the result of the change that came after the pandemic.
Demand for the products in the fashion and interior categories by German users decreased. German users seem hesitant about online shopping in the last period. From January to the end of February, sales of clothing and shoes increased by 10%. With the beginning of the Ukraine war, the sector was affected and fashion sales decreased by 8.6%. During the same period, drug sales increased dramatically and it is a substantial proportion (40%).
With the end of the pandemic; Considering the data obtained in the first 3 months of 2022, it is observed that there is a 64% increase in event sales.
5 most visited sites in Germany (similarweb.com — May 2022);
1. https://ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/
There are two big companies in the e-commerce sector in Germany: American retailer Amazon and German origin Otto. These two brands own almost half of the online market, so it can be clearly observed that it is difficult for small merchants to differentiate.
Top 10 online stores in Germany:
1. Amazon (8.82 billion Euros),
2. Otto (2.96 billion euros),
3. Zalando (1.3 billion euros),
4. Notebooksbilliger (752 million Euros),
5. MediaMarkt (734 million Euros),
6. Lidl (594 million Euros) ,
7. Bonprix (€591 million),
8. Cyberport (€533 million),
9. Conrad (€494m)
10. Alternate (€472 million).
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