German e-commerce sales rise for first time since 2021, says lobby group

BERLIN (Reuters) - German online retailers last year eked out slight revenue gains for the first time since 2021, an industry body said on Thursday, citing higher savings that are giving Germans more confidence to spend.

The BEVH association, whose members include Zalando, Amazon's (AMZN) German unit and mail order group Otto, said 2024 sales of goods in e-commerce in Germany rose 1.1% to 80.6 billion euros ($84.0 billion), including value-added tax.

In a joint projection, BEVH and the EHI retail institute said faster growth was on the cards with 2025 sales of goods likely up 2.5%.

Digital sales of services such as travel and concert tickets, a much smaller market in German e-commerce, continued to rebound from a slump during the COVID-19 pandemic but the recovery was slowing, with growth of 6.1 % in 2024 compared with 12.7% in 2023 and 39.9% in 2022.

"E-Commerce is back in the positive, even though consumer sentiment in Germany is still down," said BEVH President Gero Furchheim.

"Many consumers have built financial reserves because of a high savings rate," he added.

He cautioned that 2025 business could still be negatively affected by uncertainty from the upcoming German general elections and geopolitical tensions.

($1 = 0.9597 euros)

(Reporting by Klaus Lauer, Writing by Leon Kuegeler, Editing by Ludwig Burger)