In the Christmas business, online retail saw another strong surge in growth, not least due to the effects of the corona pandemic and the associated restrictions. According to a consumer study by the Bundesverband E-Commerce und Versandhandel (bevh) Germany, online sales in the fourth quarter were almost 24 Percent above the previous year’s level. The growth rate in e-commerce has thus more than doubled compared to the Christmas quarter 2010.

Increased growth For the full year 2020 the bevh managing director Christoph Wenk-Fischer emphasized that the growth of online trade is not quite as high. “The growth is increased, however – especially due to the weak first quarter 2019 – not exponentially”, he told the German press agency.

The areas of food and drugstore supplies in particular have grown extremely. But furniture, lamps and decorations were also bought much more frequently on the Internet. The demand for drugs is still high, although they were also available in stationary stores.

Remarkable increases The According to bevh, online sales of groceries between October and December were more than 83 percent above the previous year’s level. In the drugstore sector the increase was 31, 7 percent and the increase in drugs was 53, 5 percent. In these areas, however, online trading has so far played a comparatively minor role, so that the enormous growth took place at a low level.

But also in areas in for whom online trading has already secured significant market shares, the growth rates were remarkable. Online clothing retailing grew by around 24 percent in the Christmas quarter. Twelve months earlier, the increase had been 6 percent.

Germany’s second largest online shop Otto.de had already reported a record Christmas business at the beginning of the week. Compared to the Christmas business 2019 the number of orders is almost 53 percent increased, reported the company. “Already in October and November we were partly well above the level of 2010. This trend intensified again massively in the two weeks before Christmas” says Marc Opelt, chairman of the Otto divisional board. The top-selling products were cell phones, televisions, sofas, notebooks and shoes. For the entire business year 2020 the Otto Group expects a double-digit increase in sales.

Stationary fashion retail hard hit In recent years online retail in Germany has always grown by double digits. However, growth rates declined before the pandemic. 2019 the sales growth was still 11, 6 percent. While online retail was booming during the pandemic, many stationary retailers suffered massively from the Corona crisis.

The stationary fashion trade was particularly hard hit. According to a current industry survey by the trade journal “Textilwirtschaft”, the fashion retailers in the shopping streets and shopping centers 2020 lost almost a third of their revenues. With this historically high sales decrease, the process of melting the stationary fashion trade has accelerated massively, emphasized the specialist journal. The market has been shrinking since 2010 year after year.

Federal Statistical Office with similar figures The Federal Statistical Office also comes up with similarly high figures. It reported an estimated increase of 26, 8 percent for online retail in November 2020. At the same time, retailers for textiles, clothing, shoes and leather goods had to cope with a minus of 20 percent. On the other hand, furnishings, household appliances and building supplies were particularly in demand with an increase of 15, 4 percent. Overall, according to the Federal Statistical Office, the German retail sector did good business in 2020 and increased between 3.9 and 4.3 percent compared to the previous year.

(with material from dpa) / (kbe)