E-commerce sales are stagnating in Germany

Online retail in Germany may not yet be able to return to its boom times with double-digit growth rates, but the period of declining sales appears to have been overcome. This is the conclusion of the study “E-Commerce Market Germany 2024” by the EHI Retail Institute and ECDB. According to the study, the 1 000 top-selling B2C online stores will only see a minimal decline in sales in 2023. In 2022, the 15-year continuous growth of online retail came to a halt for the time being and the top 1 000 B2C online stores recorded a 2.8 per cent decline in sales.

This phase appears to have been overcome, according to an EHI press release. The turnover of the top 1 000 players in German online retail in 2023 is almost stagnating: their turnover is down by just 0.2 per cent (net). However, the inflation rate has not been taken into account. This corresponds to a slight decline of 164.5 mio euros to a total of 77.5 bn euros compared to 2022.

“This means that the coronavirus boost has leveled out and online retail is back on the development curve that would have been expected without the pandemic,” said Lars Hofacker, Head of E-Commerce Research at EHI, assessing the current situation. “For the current year, we expect moderate nominal growth of 1.1 per cent in sales for the top 1 000 online stores.” Before the pandemic, sales in the top 1 000 online stores had risen by an average of 10.7 per cent per year since 2008. If this trend had continued, sales of 77.6 bn euros would have been achieved in 2023 – roughly the same level as the reported 77.5 bn euros.

Amazon (14.66 bn euros), Otto (4.20 bn euros) and Zalando (2.51 bn euros) lead the ranking. The hybrid marketplaces appear in both rankings (top 1 000 online stores and top 10 marketplaces), as they generate their own store sales as well as (co-)generating the trading volume of third-party providers. The hybrid providers have therefore performed better with their marketplace volume (including their partners' sales) than with their own sales. For example, amazon.de generated an increase in turnover of 1.9 per cent as a store, but grew by 10.9 per cent as a marketplace.

Among the foreign players, Shein rose to 18th place in the top 20 and among the marketplaces, Aliexpress generated an increase of 43 per cent with an e-commerce GMV of EUR 1.24 bn and ranks 7th in the top 10 B2C marketplaces. Temu has only been active in Germany since April 2023 and just missed out on a place in the top 10 marketplace ranking with an e-commerce GMV of 690 mio euros.