German online retail rebounds as consumer spending returns in 2026
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Editorial TeamPublished on
German online retail grew 4.3% in the first half of 2026 as consumer confidence returned. See the sector winners, Asian platform gains and AI shopping trends based on figures from bevh.
German online retail is showing clear signs of recovery at the mid-year point, with consumer confidence improving noticeably. According to figures from the e-commerce association bevh, total e-commerce turnover grew by 5.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, and online retail turnover across the first half of the year as a whole rose by 4.3 per cent. After a prolonged weak spell for German consumers, willingness to spend appears to be returning.
Quote / Martin Gross-Albenhausen, deputy secretary general of bevhE-commerce has become the mainstay of the German retail sector in this extremely weak consumer environment
He noted that pure online retailers, multichannel sellers and marketplace vendors all benefited from second-quarter growth, though a closer look shows platforms, and Asian providers in particular, capturing an ever-larger share of the market.
Everyday essentials drive German online retail growth
The strongest growth in German online retail came from suppliers of everyday essentials, which rose 10.1 per cent. Chemists and drugstore products led that surge with growth of 11.7 per cent, while seasonal categories also performed well: DIY and flowers climbed 10.9 per cent, hobby and leisure items rose 7.5 per cent, and car and motorbike accessories increased 7.6 per cent.
Mail-order pharmacies posted the standout result, recording their strongest sales growth for medicines since the introduction of e-prescriptions, up 13.9 per cent. The important fashion segment also gathered momentum, with online sales growth accelerating to 4.4 per cent from 3.6 per cent in the first quarter.
Not every category shared in the upturn. The entertainment and home furnishings clusters both lagged the wider market at 2.7 per cent each, and furniture, lamps and decorations actually declined 2.1 per cent as stock remained in warehouses. A stronger first quarter means this category still shows a slight nominal increase at the half-year mark.
Marketplaces and Asian platforms reshape German online retail
By business type, online marketplaces led German online retail with growth of 6.4 per cent, generating €11.5 billion in turnover by mid-year. Direct-to-consumer manufacturers grew 6.3 per cent, also benefiting from the improved consumer mood. Traditional online shops (up 3.8 per cent) and multichannel retailers with brick-and-mortar roots (up 2.5 per cent) continued to grow but trailed the overall market.
The most significant structural shift is the rise of the largest Asian platforms. Their share of orders within the overall e-commerce sector reached 5.3 per cent by mid-year — meaning roughly one in every 20 euros of online retail turnover now flows to Shein, AliExpress or similar providers. In online fashion, Asian platforms already account for more than 16 per cent of all orders, and their revenue growth of over 20 per cent far outpaces the wider market.
A new flat-rate customs duty of €3, levied from 1 July on each distinct product group in consignments worth less than €150 sent from third countries, is expected to make little difference.
Quote / Alien Mulyk, the bevh's new Chief ExecutiveThe levy will have little impact on cheap imports from Asia. Suppliers have already begun to establish their own logistics structures within Europe.
Goods, she explained, increasingly arrive in containers and are then distributed within Europe rather than as individual, hard-to-monitor parcels.
AI prepares purchases, but buying keeps a human touch
Artificial intelligence is starting to shape how Germans shop, though mainly at the research stage. Almost 6 per cent of online shoppers used AI applications when searching for information before a purchase. Among younger age groups – 14 to 29 and 30 to 39 – more than one in ten had already turned to tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini for help.
A special survey of 2,500 online customers in the second quarter found that almost one in three (31.2 per cent) had asked chatbots for product recommendations at least once, while just over half had no experience with them yet. Trust, however, remains limited: only 12.7 per cent agreed completely or largely that they would follow a bot’s recommendation directly without further searching.
The reluctance is sharpest around payments. For more than two-thirds of respondents (68.6 per cent), granting an AI agent access to payment details is currently completely unthinkable, and only 9 per cent would be prepared to let AI agents make purchases autonomously. For now, the act of buying itself in German online retail retains a distinctly human touch.
What the figures mean for German online retail
The first half of 2026 suggests German online retail has moved from stagnation back to moderate growth, powered by everyday essentials, pharmacy sales and a recovering fashion segment. At the same time, marketplaces and Asian platforms are absorbing a growing slice of that expansion, and AI is establishing itself as a research aid rather than a replacement for human decision-making. For retailers, the message is one of cautious optimism paired with intensifying platform competition.
About the data
The figures come from bevh’s weekly consumer survey “Interactive Retail in Germany,” which surveys 40,000 private individuals in Germany aged 14 and over throughout the year on their spending in online and mail-order retail and their use of digital services. The results reported here cover the period from 1 April to 30 June 2026. The study was conducted by BEYONDATA GmbH.
