25 Million Germans Buy Online

Nicole Simon

I am not really sure why it needs over a year to examine the data for this, but here we go: German Federal Statistical Office presented numbers on how many Germans shop through the Internet in the first quarter of 2006 and which kind of gods they are interested in.

According to this 25 million Germans over the age of 10 have used the net to order goods or services through the net, equalling for a total of 52% or all private internet users in Germany (2002 this number was at 33%).

Highest number of shoppers is unsurprisingly to be found in the age range of 25- 44 with 63%, but even the silver shopper go strong with 32%. Women prefer clothes and sport articles, while men buy computer software, computer hardware and electronics.

The numbers in detail allow for some interesting suggestion:

	10-15	16-24	25-44	45-64	65++	total
shopped through the net in the first three months	21	52	63	48	32	52
books, magazines, newspapers	29	47	57	52	52	53
clothing and sport	41	50	54	43	31	49
private goods, like furniture etc	39	36	58	44	31	48
Travel, hotel, air + train tickets	/	27	44	49	50	41
movies, music	40	46	41	25	/	37

Looking at these numbers, there are several things I find noticeable:

It may very well be that more women buy clothes and guys buy the geek stuff, but there is also a strong possibility that this is not a gender issue but basically just makes up for how households are organized.
I find the numbers for travel bought online to be surprisingly low, especially considering that it is getting so easy to get tickets online and most users actually benefit from booking online. It would be my assumption that out of the group of internet users who actually buy for example tickets at all, the number of them buying tickets is much higher.
No surprise with the low number of 16-24 year old using the net for buying travel goods - their money is not spend on travel like this.
A total surprise are the numbers for the 10-15 year old, considering that there are age limits from when teenagers are allowed to conduct business.

Mind you, the numbers are from 2006 and in the mean time they must have risen substantially. But even if the overall number of users for Q1 2006 is ‘only’ 52%, it says nothing about how many purchasing decisions are influenced through what is presented as information on the net. With the slow rise of affordable data tariffs the mobile price comparison and information should be an interesting development in the future.

Overall message? More than 25 million German internet users are happy to buy online, all speaking the same language - and you even get Austria as well as parts of Switzerland on top with the same language.

When do you start selling in Germany?