High growth potential among “silver surfers”

Last year, a total of 34.1 million Germans aged between 14 and 69 bought goods and services online. These are the findings of the current Online Shopping Survey.

This represents a rise of 2.2 million customers on the prior year. The statistics include 15.2 million consumers who purchased travel services online and 7.9 million who bought products from private individuals over the Internet.

With 14.9 million online shoppers, books are the most popular product category, pushing clothing (14.7 million) into second place. Then come event tickets (12.5 million), CDs and DVDs (8.5 million) and hotel bookings (7.4 million). The highest gains were made by books (+2.5 million), followed by event ticket sales (+2.2 million) and clothes (+2.1 million). In percentage terms, growth in the number of online shoppers was particularly high for cars (+61%), car accessories (+25%), white goods (+32%) and food supplements (+23%).

A change in the league of top shopping sites
With around 20.3 million shoppers, Ebay was able to regain its pole position among the most frequently used online shopping sites. Because of its insolvency, Quelle.de dropped out of the top five shopping sites, so that both Weltbild and Tchibo were able to climb up a place in the rankings.

The most popular online shopping sites

Where shoppers had not yet bought online, the online shopping survey also examined why not. In this group, the proportion of individuals who saw no necessity for online shopping in principle, preferring to shop locally in person, had grown markedly. It seems to be difficult to persuade these shoppers of the delights of online shopping, since they are firmly convinced that using local retailers is preferable.

While online shopping is not yet particularly popular in some sociodemographic segments, there is certainly potential for gaining more online customers in certain product groups. These areas include travel services, such as hotel bookings and car rentals, and the purchase of medical supplies, food supplements and technical goods like computers and software.

Products offering potential in certain socio-demographic segments

The survey The online shopping survey (OSS) is an annual survey by ENIGMA GfK, an institute specializing in media research which offers information services for TV, print, radio and online media. In January and February 2010, 1,183 Germans aged between 14 and 69 were telephone-surveyed on the subject of the Internet and its impact on their shopping habits for 29 different goods and services.