Ecommerce in Germany
Do you want to conquer the German market with your online shop? Germans are among the largest online buyers in Europe. With over 83 million inhabitants, e commerce Germany is almost 5 times larger than the Dutch and total e-commerce sales are twice as high. In 2021, 12% of e-commerce in Germany involved purchases from abroad. Reason enough to investigate whether your webshop will also be a success in German. If you create the webshop, make sure that all necessary information can be found on your website. The German customer wants to know everything about regulations, return options, and conditions before they make an online purchase. In addition, he prefers quality and references to a cheap price. So adjust your keywords accordingly. With the help of Clonable, creating a German webshop or a German website is easy.
Top 3 foreign online purchases:
China
Austria
Top 3 product categories:
Clothing & shoes (30%)
Home & garden (15%)
Sports & hobby (14%)
Top 3 favorite payment methods:
Digital wallet (Paypal, Allpay; 52%)
Credit card (16%)
On account (13%)
Figures: Crossborder e-commerce shopper research conducted by the International Postal Cooperation (IPC)
Reliability & privacy
Germans value reliability and seals of approval. With a seal of approval you show that an independent institution has inspected your web shop and you increase the chances of a purchase by the German customer. So when translating a website to German, it is definitely wise to apply for a trustmark. These German webshop seals of approval are the most common:
- Trusted Shops: European label for online stores that verifies that a web store respects customers' rights.
- TÜV-SÜD Geprüft S@fer shopping: specific German seal of approval in which a German recognizes quality.
- EHI Geprüfter Online-shop: seal of approval from EHI, the best-known trade organization in Germany.
- Datenschutz-Gütesiegel ips: assesses mainly on data security and data protection.
Online privacy is also highly valued in Germany. German laws on privacy, colophon (Impressum), copywriting, data protection and data storage are much stricter than in the Netherlands. A Datenschutzerklärung is also mandatory if you process personal data on your website. This states, for example, how and why you collect customer data. You also indicate how your customer can unsubscribe to a newsletter, for example. Display this statement visibly on your webshop, such as at the top or bottom of your homepage.
Popular web shops
When it comes to e-commerce in Germany, there are a few popular sites that stand out from the rest. The most popular e-commerce site in Germany is Amazon, followed by eBay and Otto. Other popular sites include Zalando, AliExpress and Rakuten.
E-commerce events
Last but not least, there are a few important e-commerce events taking place in Germany that are worth highlighting. These include the DMexco conference, the Online Trade Kongress and the Internet World Expo.
