Selling online in Germany

United_Kingdom_128  Germany
Germany is a mature consumer market with a well established and large ecommerce sector. With a population of 82,293,457, Germany has an average annual per capita ecommerce spend of €1,149, which is below the european average of €2,186.
Top sites
1. Amazon
2. eBay
3. Otto Group
4. Google Shopping
5. Idealo
Top online payment methods
1. Invoice after delivery
2. Direct debit
3. PayPal
Country Profile
Population 82,293,457
Language(s) spoken German
Currency Euro
GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP) 4,170,790
Nominal GDP 3,684,816
GDP growth rate 2.10%
Number of Internet users 71,016,605
Internet penetration 88.00%
Learn more about selling in Germany.

Ecommerce facts & tips on selling in Germany

Germany is a mature consumer market with a well established and large ecommerce sector. With a population of 82,293,457, Germany has an average annual per capita ecommerce spend of €1,149, which is below the european average of €2,186.

Top ecommerce sites

The top ecommerce sites in Germany are Amazon, eBay and Otto Group. Other top retail sites include Google Shopping, idealo, Media Markt, Check24 Vergleichsportal GmbH, Apple sites, Duden.de and Zalando. It’s worth checking out these popular sites to see which ones might best suit your product in terms of traffic volume, competition and the type of ecommerce buyers that they attract.To learn how to expand in this market, download our Internal growth eBook.

Popular products

The top products and categories for Germany ecommerce buyers include clothing, consumer electronics & telecom, books, & ebooks, shoes and computer/accessories/games/software. Offering products from these categories may help you establish your presence on Germany ecommerce market and give you a headstart. Discover your product feed’s international potential.

Payment methods

The top online payment methods in Germany include invoice after delivery, direct debit and PayPal. It’s important to provide your (potential) customers with payment methods of their preference, not supporting common payment methods in a given market will immediately exclude a certain proportion of that market. In many cases, if online shoppers can’t find their preferred or trusted methods of payment during checkout, they will abandon the shopping cart entirely.

Your site’s checkout is the most important and most sensitive part of your buying funnel. Optimizing your checkout for your customers, particularly your international ones, will have a huge impact on your conversion rate. Make sure you provide local payment options, currency conversion and appropriate, cost effective, and timely, local shipping methods.

Mobile commerce

For B2C online purchases particularly, mobile ecommerce now makes up a significant proportion of Germany ecommerce market and within the next 12 months is likely to surpass desktop usage. Ecommerce merchants should bear this in mind when setting up their online stores and product listings. Mobile optimization and a great mobile buying experience is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it must be core to your broader ecommerce strategy.

Digital marketing and SEO

To drive Germany traffic to your website, local marketing & SEO will be essential, however, in order to do this effectively you will need to localize your store for Germany market. Having a localized version of your store, in Euro (EUR) and in German will enable you to have your store indexed in Germany search engines and in order to generate free organic traffic. Another great and highly effective way to generate good quality, qualified traffic, is Google Ads. To learn more about global traffic growth, download our free international SEO eBook.
 
Another great and highly effective way to generate good quality, qualified traffic, is Google Ads. Glopal provides a simple & fully managed ecommerce solution that connects your existing Google Shopping product feeds with buyers worldwide, growing your sales instantly. Glopal also handles all components of localization required to use Google Shopping in Germany. Not sure about your international marketing potential? Use our free Google Shopping grader.

Shipping

Germany has a sophisticated and efficient ecommerce industry and to compete effectively it is essential that you are able to offer cost effective and timely local shipping options. The easiest way to provide a reliable and secure local shipping service in a new market is often to use an international parcel forwarding service.

Customs, Tax & Duties

In order to ensure a seamless buying experience and reliable delivery times for Germany buyers it is a good idea to consider calculating and displaying all local taxes and duties up front. This involves assigning relevant HS codes to all your products and then using those to calculate the taxes and duties that need to be applied to a specific product. This is an arduous manual task, but can be automated using Glopal’s HS Classification tool.

Germany: General Information

Selling in Germany is a great option for growth-minded online merchants. When you launch your store in a new market, there are a number of useful facts and data that you should consider.

There are 71,016,605 Internet users in Germany and Internet penetration amounts to 88.00%. In terms of device usage, there are 55,492,000 smartphone users and smartphone penetration amounts to 68.80%. On a global scale, smartphones are being more and more widely used for digital purchases.

Population & language

The total population of Germany is 82,293,457. The median age is 47.1. The language spoken in Germany is German and the currency is Euro. The country code top-level domain is .de and calling code +49.

The economy

According to the International Monetary Fund, GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP) is 4,170,790 (millions of Current Int$) and nominal GDP is 3,684,816 (US$MM). GDP (PPP) per capita is 50,206 Int$ and GDP (nominal) per capita is 44,550 US$. Real GDP growth rate is 2.10%.

International ecommerce sales potential

Selling in Germany is worth considering for many international ecommerce merchants. It’s a large and active consumer market. If you’re already selling into Germany, you may be happy with your sales figures. However, you may have noticed that your Germany, and your international traffic in general, converts at a much lower conversion rate than your domestic traffic, even in markets that share the same language.

The likely reason for this is that, even if your site and product descriptions are in the same language, you may not have addressed many of the other components of localization, that will impact conversion rate.

‍ A fully localized buying experience should address:

  • Ecommerce-optimized translation
  • Local marketing & SEO
  • Size & Currency conversion
  • International payment methods
  • Local shipping options
  • Tax & duties
  • Legals and local compliance
  • Local product restrictions

 

Online retailers used to do a great deal of manual work to expand globally, managing translation manually, matching product categories, attributes, sizes, etc.

Luckily, thanks to the developments in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), online merchants no longer have to spend time on ecommerce translation & localization when launching their stores abroad.

Machine learning technologies now provide automated translation, extract attributes, convert sizes and map the right category in an accurate, efficient and consistent way. To learn more about our cross border solutions, contact us.

Sell in Germany: Translate & localize your online store with Glopal

Sell with Glopal to reach new customers worldwide. Using powerful localization features, Glopal enables merchants to sell their products to global buyers in their language and currency.

Our Plug & Play solution takes 15 mins to install and is available for Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.  Custom integrations are available on our enterprise plan for other platforms.

011