For retailers, the weeks before Christmas are the most profitable time of the year. And this year, the volume of business is expected to increase even further, by 1.9% compared to the previous year in Germany, to reach 72.5 billion euros. This is the conclusion of an international study carried out by the coupon portal deals.com in collaboration with the Centre for Retail Research.
But business is increasingly moving into the e-commerce sector. Yet mobile commerce (m-commerce), i.e. ordering by smartphone or tablet, plays an increasingly important role. Thus, the study predicted a 1.3% decline in stationary commerce for Germany, to 60.38 billion euros. This is compensated for by the 21.5% increase in online business, to 12.1 billion euros. M-commerce is expected to account for 3.4 billion euros, while the remaining 8.7 billion in sales is expected to arise from PC orders. 1.2 billion euros of m-commerce sales will come from orders on tablets, 2.2 billion will be generated via smartphones. This corresponds to an increase of 401% compared to the previous year in the m-commerce share of the total e-commerce volume. However, this high value is also explained by the fact that the total m-commerce share of Christmas business is still relatively low.
The study by deals.com is based on statistical analyses, customer surveys and interviews with dealers. It was conducted throughout September and October in Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA. In Germany, market researchers surveyed 1,000 consumers and 50 retailers. Christmas trade was defined as the six weeks from mid-November.