Trends Report

German Online Retail Overview, 2011

Despite A Thriving Online Market, Multichannel Retail Is Still An Untapped Opportunity For German Retailers

September 30th, 2011
Martin Gill, VP, Research Director
Martin Gill VP, Research Director
With contributors:
Patti Freeman Evans , Zia Daniell Wigder , Sabine Poltermann , Amelia Martland , Myriam Da Costa

Summary

The German online retail market is the second largest in Europe. Amazon.de and eBay are dominant forces, with major German consumer brands selling through those sites, and others following suit creating their own marketplaces. In Germany the distinction between online and offline behavior and approaches to retail is still strong— many retailers maintain strong channel separation, few offer any form of multichannel shopping incentives such as "click and collect," and shoppers even prefer to pay differently online, with PayPal outstripping any other payment method online. German retailers have a huge opportunity to engage their shoppers in a more rounded and flexible way, leveraging emerging touchpoints such as mobile, but also to provide some foundational multichannel experiences to convince a significant number of online shopping holdouts that Internet shopping is safe.

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