Amazon serves about 16.7 million German internet purchasers which is more than any other online purchase and trading platform. eBay ranks second this year. Amazon recently improved the variety of its product range and lowered its freight charges. This was the finding of the “Online Shopping Survey” (OSS) carried out by the association for research on consumption (GfK).
Other internet sites improved their ranking as well, e.g. Otto.de and Weltbild.de. The popularity of a site among online purchasers depends on several factors. An easy return of purchased goods as well as a clearly structured and informative site are becoming more and more important.
|
Shopping site rank in 2009 |
Online purchaser (millions) |
rank in 2008 |
| Amazon.de | 16.7 | 2 |
| Ebay.de | 16.3 | 1 |
| Otto.de | 6.7 | 4 |
| Quelle.de | 6.1 | 3 |
| Weltbild.de | 5.2 | 6 |
Ranking of internet sites according to number of online purchasers
There were some changes with regard to the ranking of product groups as well. Most demanded last year by online purchasers were clothes (12.6 million purchasers) ahead of books which had been the most popular product group in recent years (12.4 million). Event tickets (10.3 million), CDs (8.8 million) and overnight stays in hotels (8.6 million) were the following most popular products purchased over the internet. 