- Buying from the manufacturer is becoming increasingly popular, but multichannel is growing faster
- Digital services cannot yet benefit from easing
- Groceries and everyday goods again with the greatest growth
- Sector settles into normal growth rhythm in the medium term
Despite the gradual revival of public life, and although the third quarter is considered the weakest of the year due to seasonal factors, sales in e-commerce with goods from July to October rose significantly by 14.8 percent to 22.194 billion and in interactive commerce by 14 .3 percent to EUR 22.467 billion. For e-commerce, it is the fastest-growing third quarter in five years and continues an acceleration in sales growth that has been ongoing since 2017 (see table).
Table: Q3 growth has steadily accelerated since 2017
|
|
Sales of goods in billion euros |
Sales growth compared to the same quarter of the previous year |
| Q3/2021 |
22,194 |
+14,8% |
| Q3/2020 |
19,329 |
+13,3% |
| Q3/2019 |
17,063 |
+12,3% |
| Q3/2018 |
15,199 |
+11,6% |
| Q3/2017 |
13,617 |
+9,0% |
D2C and Multichannel are growing the most
Digital direct-to-manufacturer sales underscores its continued strength and remains the only sales channel to have grown comfortably double-digit every quarter since the pandemic hit. No other distribution type was able to increase as much as manufacturer mail order (+23.2 percent cumulative from January up to and including September 2021). If you only look at the most recent, third quarter, the multichannel retailers have come up with the strongest growth. This is surprising, since for the first time since the beginning of the year they were able to open their shops to customers for an entire quarter, but customers still like to order online. Trade on online marketplaces, which is largely carried out by stationary and online retailers, continues to increase its volume in the long-term trend and will turn over significantly more than ten billion euros in each quarter for the first time in 2021.
Table: Total sales and sales growth in Q3/2021 compared to the same quarter of the previous year by shipper type (only e-commerce)
|
Total sales in million euros |
Change to Q3/2020 |
|
| multi-channel |
3.502 |
21,2% |
| Online trade |
6.928 |
11,5% |
| online marketplaces |
10.672 |
15,3% |
| Manufacturer / D2C |
880 |
20,5% |
| teleshopping |
185 |
-16,6% |
| Other |
28 |
22,7% |
“Particularly gratifying is the positive development of the multichannel retailers, which have contributed to the strong results in the industry. Among them are many companies that used to be purely stationary and have built up a digital foothold under great pressure during the pandemic. That makes us optimistic and shows that many of these retailers are successfully establishing themselves in digital retail,” says Christoph Wenk-Fischer, CEO of bevh.
Upward trend in food continues
The strongest growth drivers among the product groups in Q3/2021 were food, DIY & flowers, hobbies & leisure items (see table). The goods cluster with the strongest growth were articles of everyday use, which, in addition to groceries, also included drugstore products and pet food.
Table: Sales development in e-commerce with goods in Q3 compared to the same period of the previous year by product group
| goods group
|
Q3/2020 in million euros |
Q3/2021 in million euros |
change |
| clothing |
3.962 |
4.491 |
13,3% |
| House & home textiles |
314 |
346 |
10,2% |
| Shoes |
1.080 |
1.243 |
15,1% |
| Books / Ebooks / Audiobooks |
908 |
958 |
5,4% |
| Image & sound carriers / video & music downloads |
717 |
856 |
19,3% |
| Electronics & Telecom |
3.039 |
3.173 |
4,4% |
| Computer/accessories/games/software incl. Downloads |
1.415 |
1.691 |
19,6% |
| Hobbies & Leisure Items |
908 |
1.124 |
23,8% |
| DIY & Flowers |
675 |
878 |
30,1% |
| Furniture, lamps & decoration |
1.211 |
1.406 |
16,1% |
| Household Goods & Appliances |
1.680 |
2.016 |
20,0% |
| drugstore |
690 |
842 |
22,0% |
| Food |
633 |
852 |
34,5% |
| Jewelry watches |
314 |
354 |
13,0% |
| Car & Motorbike/ Accessories |
439 |
423 |
-3,7% |
| toys |
251 |
294 |
17,0% |
| office supplies |
173 |
197 |
13,8% |
| medication |
312 |
382 |
22,3% |
| pet supplies |
410 |
469 |
14,5% |
| miscellaneous |
198 |
201 |
1,7% |
|
|
|
|
|
| CLUSTER clothing |
5.042 |
5.733 |
13,7% |
| CLUSTER entertainment |
6.079 |
6.677 |
9,8% |
| CLUSTER Leisure |
2.274 |
2.719 |
19,6% |
| CLUSTER facility |
3.205 |
3.767 |
17,6% |
| CLUSTER daily needs |
1.733 |
2.163 |
24,8% |
Digital services remain below their potential
Revenues from digital services, which also include travel bookings, rose by 31.0 percent to EUR 2.23 billion in Q3 and are losing momentum again compared to mid-year (Q2/2020: 61.3 percent). these are still catch-up effects that cannot make up for the slump from the previous year (Q3/2020: -66.6 percent). The bottom line is that while people have returned to online travel and concert ticket bookings over the summer months, they are still spending their money on things to do more cautiously than before the pandemic broke out.
Annual forecast confirmed
In the first nine months of the year, e-commerce generated total sales of around EUR 67.4 billion. The entire interactive trade including services reached 74 billion euros in this period. Including a strong last Christmas quarter, the industry is still on the way to breaking the 100 billion euro mark for the first time this year.
comparability of the data
In the interests of better comparability of the data with other surveys, bevh has based its sender typology on the following general classification.
- Online retailers are those e-commerce companies that were still active with classic catalog mail order in addition to the digital sales channels. These were previously recorded under multichannel trade, since the catalog represented an independently controlled business model for a long time. In addition to Internet pure players, the online trade category also includes those originally pure e-commerce providers who now have branches but generate the majority of their business in e-commerce. The sales of the shopping clubs and mail-order pharmacies are also included here.
- Companies that generate more than half of their external sales (gross goods volume, GMV) with the offers of third-party retailers on their platform are recorded as online marketplaces (OMP).
- Multichannel retailers (MCV) are companies that have their home in stationary retail. This also includes verticalized suppliers with branches, provided they do not also make their products available to retailers via wholesalers.
- Manufacturers with direct sales (HEV) are companies that either work exclusively in direct sales (classic “representative mail order”) or deliver to retailers as brand manufacturers, but also generate sales on their own space and in their own online trade.
About the study
In the consumer survey “Interactive Retail in Germany” from January to December, 40,000 private individuals from Germany aged 14 and over were asked about their spending behavior in online and mail order business and their consumption of digital services (e.g. in the areas of travel or ticketing). . The final result of the study will be published in early 2022 after the survey is completed. The figures presented today are based on the analysis of the months April to June 2021. The study is carried out by BEYONDATA GmbH.
Source: bevh.org
