Customers loyal to Rewe, Aldi and Co .: Amazing insight - "Germany is massively behind"

Created: 01/03/2022, 4:17 PM

From: Bedrettin Bölükbasi

A newly published study shows: Germany is massively lagging behind in the online grocery trade.

© Jan Woitas / dpa

Even in the wake of the corona pandemic, Germany is massively behind in online grocery retailing, as a new study shows.

Supermarket customers remain loyal to their stores.

Munich - The trend of online grocery retailing has spread across the world, especially in recent years.

There are also some providers in Germany where you can order and have groceries conveniently delivered to your door.

Consumers in Germany like to shop online anyway.

When it comes to fashion, electronics or travel, according to a recent study by the market research company NielsenIQ, they are even among the pioneers of e-commerce in Europe.

The situation is different for food and consumer goods such as personal care products.

There is a massive backlog here.

Online trade: Germany is lagging behind in the food sector - despite the increasing number of providers

In this area, most people are loyal to the Rewe, Edeka, Aldi, Lidl and Co. stores. "When it comes to online retailing of food and other consumer goods, Germany brings up the rear in Europe," said retail expert Thomas Montiel Castro from NielsenIQ, summarizing the results of a current study by market researchers. E-commerce accounts for less than two percent of sales in food and consumer goods. For comparison: In Great Britain it is 13.8 percent and in France at least 10.8 percent. "Germany is really lagging behind here and Corona has not changed anything," Castro added.

The statement is astonishing at first, because there is currently more going on in online grocery stores in Germany than ever before. An almost unmanageable number of new delivery services such as Gorillas, Flink or Picnic are pushing their way onto the market with hundreds of millions of euros in venture capital behind them and creating competition for the established grocery retailers. In more and more cities, the small electric cars from Picnic and the bike couriers from Gorillas, Flink and Co. are now cruising through the streets and delivering online orders to your home.

According to its own information, Picnic now supplies over 250,000 customers in over 45 cities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

According to its own information, Flink brings the ordered goods to the house within minutes in 41 cities across Germany.

Competitor Gorillas is currently promising delivery of the order in just ten minutes in 23 cities.

Online grocery trade: Rewe increases sales with its own delivery service - "Competition is getting interesting"

And the Cologne retail giant Rewe is also continuously expanding its online pillar. "We have increased sales in e-commerce again this year by around 50 percent - to over 700 million euros," said Rewe boss Lionel Souque of the

. Rewe currently already offers a delivery service for goods ordered online in 75 cities and will expand this offer to the Ruhr area in the coming year - where there is still a large gap in the group's e-commerce offering. In addition, the retail chain is offering more and more shops the option of picking up pre-packaged goods that have been ordered online.

The competition from Gorillas, Flink, Picnic and Co. sees Souque calmly.

“It's growing very quickly, but it's still totally unprofitable,” says the manager.

But he also admits: “It won't go away again.

Because for some of the customers such offers are very interesting.

But in the end, only one or two providers will survive. ”Rewe itself took a less than 10 percent stake in the fast delivery service Flink in order to be present in this area as well.

But Rewe's main focus is on its own delivery and collection service.

The retail giant is still not making any money with its e-commerce offering.

"It will be a few more years before we are in the black in online retail - but that will come," says Souque.