Have you ever bought food on the Internet? This is how Germans shop!

The trends in e-commerce are moving more and more in one direction. Shopping in the city centre or would you prefer to order from the comfort of your own home? Most Germans no longer ask themselves this question. Find out here how Germans shop in 2019.

56 million German citizens shop both online and offline. If you don’t shop on the web, you usually simply don’t have Internet access. But if one is available, it is almost always used for shopping. This applies to 97 percent of consumers who have Internet access. This is the result of a representative survey commissioned by the digital association Bitkom.

The smartphone plays a central role here: it becomes a shopping centre. By now, every second person buys online on the smartphone. Above all, the older generation is now increasingly getting involved in mobile shopping.

„Online shops must be optimised for mobile access and small screens in order to successfully address customers. In the next step, it should be a question of making shopping via a voice assistant as easy as possible.”, says Bitkom Managing Director Dr. Bernhard Rohleder.

Online reviews of high importance

When selecting a shop, the most important factors for consumers are price, payment options and free delivery. In addition, customer reviews play an increasingly important role. Everybody knows the situation where you first want to get a second opinion about the online evaluations. For more than half, they are now a decisive criterion in shop selection, many read online customer reviews generally before buying products. More than half of them also check out price comparison pages before buying online or base their information on test reports. For almost all buyers, online research influences the purchase decision.

The trend in online food retailing is still pending

The food trade via the web is growing only marginally and is currently reaching hardly any additional buyer groups. Even if the satisfaction with the service of the “food to the front door” is high, the trend is not yet really able to assert itself. A small ray of hope: According to the survey, a good third of all respondents could well imagine buying food or beverages online in the future. It is important to take the place of residence of the interviewees into account: In rural regions, only 21 percent have already bought food online, in cities it is already more than one in three.

What could be the reason why the boom has failed to materialise so far? In particular, most consumers are reluctant to order fresh food online. Most consumers buy sweets, ready meals and preserves, special foods or specialities and gourmet products on the web. Meat or sausage products and dairy products as well as fruit and vegetables, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the shopping list.

„Customers are increasingly using the Internet as a source of information before pressing the buy button. With transparent and independent evaluations on their homepage, online shops can offer orientation and at the same time stand out positively from other online retailers.“, says Rohleder.

This is how the Germans Shop in 2019

Offline shopping continues, but online shopping is becoming more and more popular. The fact is that 56 million German citizens now shop online. The boom in ordering food from the web has so far failed to materialise. A small ray of hope: More than a third of those surveyed can imagine shopping for food on the Web. This is where we now have to work and build on. The online customer ratings are the most important purchasing aid; over 60 percent read them and base their choices on them. What about you? Do you still buy offline or do you already live online?

Source image: iStock / Anastasia_Prish