A new study by the association for research on consumption (GfK) revealed that an ever growing number of people in Germany use the internet for turnover generating activities. In the year 2008 German consumers bought goods to the amount of 13.6 billion Euros over the internet which was an increase by 19% on the previous year. Thus, the internet continues being a distribution channel with the biggest growth potential.
In contrast to the overall consumer trend with regard to non-food products, turnover generated through e-commerce activities increased significantly in the year 2008. According to GfK, this is in particular due to the fact that an ever growing number of people shop online: the number of online buyers increased by 12 % to 29.5 million. The purchase rate remained almost unchanged at 9.4 purchases per capita and per year. Average spending per purchase increased by 7% to almost 49 Euros.
It turned out, however, that the kind of internet usage differs very much according to consumer group. In order to illustrate this fact, the GfK experts subdivided consumers in seven different categories of internet users. Most consumers (35 %) are part of the group of selective internet users which generate just 13 % of total e-commerce turnover. The lion share of turnover is generated by online purchasers and online bankers which account for about 20 % of all internet users and generated approximately 35 % of total e-commerce turnover. 