How to develop your Shopify store in Germany?

One of the most important aspects of the success of a Shopify store is the market in which it was launched. One of the missions of International Shopify Agencies is precisely to develop this store in foreign markets.

First, it should be noted that some markets have greater potential than others. These markets generally have a stable economy and slow growth, which implies a certain security.

In this article, we will focus on the case of Germany. Thanks to its economic potential, Germany is a large consumer market with a fairly high level of security. Today, Germany is economically the most active state in the European Union ahead of France, thanks to the massive investments of the German government of Angela Merkel in the purchasing power of German households.

This strong economy is due to two things. First, the Germans have a sense of discipline and are therefore less subject to market variations. The second is political. Indeed, when East Germany left the Soviet Union in 1989, Germany was able to benefit from an economic rebound with consumer aid to East Germans.

This consumption continues today, where the Germans have been able to perpetuate and develop their purchasing power unlike, for example, France, which today has great difficulty in maintaining its purchasing power.

In the same way as with e-commerce in the United States , it can be interesting for your brand to establish itself in Germany.

In this article we will see in more detail why it is necessary to develop its e-commerce activity on the German market? What are the reasons why this market is ahead of other European markets. How to translate your Shopify store to launch on the German market?

Summary

Why expand to Germany?

According to the latest report on the state of German unity, there is still a gap between the economic power of the east and the west. However, there has been a reduction in this gap in recent years. As proof, the economic power of the East, which was more precarious at the time of the Soviet Union than that of the West, increased from 43% in 1990 to 75% in 2018 compared to that of Europe. from West.

It is important to mention that during the separation, the economy of the west was more flourishing than that of the east, and at the end of the Soviet bloc, the economy of East Germany was non-existent.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that in a general framework, things tend to improve these days. Thus, this member country of the European Union, which has 83.8 million inhabitants, experienced a growth rate of 0.6% in 2019.

Thanks to its economic dynamism, Germany is the leading European economy. It ranks fourth among the world's major economic powers. All these indicators reflect this economic performance.

Indeed, according to IMF forecasts, the GDP per capita in Germany in 2022 will be $54,653 per capita and an overall GDP of over $4.5 billion. In addition, the economic fabric of Germany is marked by a strong presence of industry which in 2019 alone represented 22% of gross value added. A huge difference when in France, in which the industry continues to expatriate or close.

In France, by way of comparison, French industry produces only 13% of the gross domestic product, a difference which can be explained by the deindustrialization of northern France and Alsace during the 1970s. To give an example the importance of this loss, since the beginning of the 2000s, more than 770,000 jobs have been lost by France.

Which is too far from the European average which was 15%. With such indicators, it is quite logical that e-commerce is flourishing there. Indeed, e-commerce has indeed experienced its revolution in Germany in 2020. In this year, it experienced its strongest growth to reach 83.3 billion euros in turnover. Compared to 2019, this is an increase of nearly 14.6%.

Germany, a country ahead of e-commerce in Europe.

As we mentioned in the previous paragraphs, in 2020 e-commerce has seen a strong evolution in Germany. This evolution is explained by many changes in consumer habits. These are marked by:

• An increase in the number of households making their purchase online. In 2020, they reached 12.5%.
• The increase in the proportion of seniors who shop online. It rose to a third in 2020. This is well above 25% in 2019.
• Half of consumer purchases are made on major online e-commerce platforms.

Nearly three-quarters of consumers said they want to maintain or exceed the amount they spend online. Yet in 2019, only 50% of people had the same desires. The proportion of major consumer goods purchased online by Germans increased significantly in 2020 with the COVID effect. Thus, sales of online grocery products rose from 1.6 billion euros in 2019 to 2.7 billion in 2020.

All these statistics show the strong potential of the German market compared to other European markets. The vast majority of e-commerce turnover in Germany is generated by around ten online e-commerce brands. These include: Amazon, eBay Germany, Otto, Media Markt, Lidl, Thomann, Zalando, etsy, About You, Shop Apotheke….

These large brands are mostly specialized in the sale of electronic devices, fashion accessories, groceries, household appliances and other everyday consumer products.

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How to translate your Shopify store?

Given the enormous potential of the German market, this should make you think about whether you want to launch a Shopify store. So, as an e-merchant, how do you get started and benefit from the potential of this market? The easiest option to do this is to translate your Shopify store in order to reference it on the German market.

To translate your shopify store, you have several options:

• translate it yourself,
• Use Google translate to do this,
• Use a professional translator,
• Use Deepl's machine learning.

If you have skills required to translate your store, this seems like the best option. However, be aware that this solution takes a lot of time. So, before committing to it, be sure that you will reach the end of the project. Otherwise you will end up with a half-translated site.

The translation solution with Google Translate is not to be prioritized. Indeed, Google does machine translation. Generally, it does not offer a good rendering. However, if you are looking for a quick solution, you can adopt it before editing your texts later.

It also seems interesting insofar as you consider testing several markets to see the most promising. Once you have completed your test, you can adopt a more reliable solution.

Using the services of a professional translator is the surest way to get a good translation of your site. However, adopting this solution will incur a cost. We advise you to opt for translation support from a Shopify Agency, which will be qualitative, complete and which will allow you to have a correctly translated site.

Deepl is the more improved version of Google translate. Although its paid version allows you to translate large volumes of text, you can still use the free version. Always pay attention to the rendering of your text before integrating it and always check spelling and grammar.

Before choosing one of the translation solutions above, it is important to remember that translation errors can have a huge impact on your translation rates.

What is Germany's GDP?

In 2021, Germany's GDP was approximately 3,567 billion euros. It is the most active economy in Europe.

What is the average income in Germany?

The average income in Germany is around $55,000 (around €50,000) per year. Twice as much as France, which sees its average income peak at €26,000 (around €21,000) per year.

What is the share of industry in German GDP?

German industry in 2021 represents 22.5% of German gross domestic product.

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