Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 21, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The final days in particular and a large number of last-minute buyers making decisions at short notice ensured a positive result in Christmas business. The German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) e.V. accordingly estimates online Christmas sales at around 5.3 billion euros. Overall, e-commerce in Germany thus reaches the new high of around 19 billion euros in total B2C sales in 2007.
According to a retailer survey by OXID eSales AG, online retailers are now significantly more satisfied with the course of business than they were only a few weeks ago. 79.8 percent of the shop operators surveyed are satisfied with the results and can predominantly record sales increases, according to the result of the OXID market check, in which around 100 online retailers from different sectors participated. Although there are also some retailers who have to live with sales losses (12.1 percent), the balance is significantly more favourable than in bricks-and-mortar retail. “A reluctance to buy was not observed in online retail,” said Roland Fesenmayr, Chairman of the E-Commerce Specialist Group. “The number of last-minute buyers has apparently continued to increase. With every day that the end of Christmas business draws closer, satisfaction grows. More and more customers are apparently avoiding the Christmas stress in city centres and using the advantages of the Internet.”
Every third online retailer is more than satisfied
The result of this partly changed consumer behaviour has a significantly more positive effect for online retailers than for most bricks-and-mortar retailers: Four out of five respondents are satisfied with the results of Christmas business; every third (34.3 percent) is even very or extremely satisfied. A result that is unlikely to apply to offline retailers in this way. The reason for the general satisfaction is the sales increases reported by most retailers (60.6 percent). These are – as in the previous year – at a fairly high level. More than every third retailer (40.4 percent) was able to increase sales by more than ten percent compared with the previous year’s result, and more than every fourth (28.3 percent) by even more than 25 percent. “The fact that Internet retail was able to grow by an average of 17 percent in 2007 despite generally stagnating willingness to consume underlines the enormous potential of e-commerce in Germany,” Roland Fesenmayr sums up. BVDW experts assume that around 20 percent of the total potential was reached in 2007.
