Germany – Upward trend in mail order shopping
In the first six months of 2006, German households spent an average of 269 euros on non-food items by mail order, that is via the Internet, catalogues or teleshopping.
With a share of 12.8% of the total non-food spend, the importance of mail order shopping has risen sharply compared to the prior year. These are the results from the GfK Universal Panel, in which GfK Panel Services collects data on the purchase behavior of German private households for non-food items.
While the average household spend on non-food items rose slightly in the first half of 2006 for the first time in years, one type of shopping has been enjoying growing popularity for a long time: distance shopping. More and more consumers are buying non-food products such as clothes, books and electrical and electronic equipment via mail order. The share of purchases carried out via the Internet, catalogues and TV stations alone increased year-on-year from 12.2% to 12.8%. This corresponds to an average spend by mail order per household in Germany of around 269 euros. The majority of consumers prefer online shopping and the percentage of non-food items bought via the Internet doubled in the period 2003 to 2006, increasing from 3.3% to 6.6%. People under 30 are increasingly turning to the new sales channels and 16.4% of their non-food spend was attributable to mail order shopping in the first half of 2006. In 2003, this figure was just 10.8%. The under 30 age group has now overtaken the 30-49-year olds, which four years ago was still the most important customer base for online, catalogue and teleshopping providers with a share of 12.3% of total spend. However, mail order shopping is also gaining in importance for this mid-age group and now accounts for 13.3% of non-food spend.
At 11%, the level of spend by consumers aged over 50 on orders placed via catalogues, the Internet and teleshopping has remained constant for many years.
