Online share of furniture industry in Germany at 14 percent

Consumers in Germany are increasingly buying furniture online. The share of online shopping has now reached around 14 percent. And it’s mostly single households and consumers under the age of 30 that tend to buy their furniture online instead of in physical stores.

This was said by Jan Kurth, the managing director of VDM, the association of the German furniture industry. During the annual economic press conference, Kurth shared the latest numbers of this particular industry. The furniture industry has grown only slightly by 1 percent in the first half of the year, which is still a welcome development after the declines in sales during the second half of last year.

Germans increasingly browse and buy furniture online

According to VDM, consumers in Germany are becoming increasingly familiar with buying furniture online. This is also shown by the sources of information. The furniture business is still the most important source of information (68 percent), followed by flyers from furniture stores (54 percent). But almost half of all respondents (48 percent) now use the internet as an information and inspiration source. In the younger target groups (aged 40 years or less), the internet is even dominating with 77 percent.

Three in four consumers who bought larger pieces of furniture in the past five years, made their last purchase in a physical furniture store. And almost 10 percent made the purchase at a pure online retailer, while another 4 percent bought furniture through the online portal of a furniture store. This means, there is now a 14 percent ecommerce share in the German furniture industry.

Online furniture industry has lot of potential

“The online shopping of furniture certainly has a lot of potential and the industry should use this potential by offering appealing concepts and target group-adequate information.”