With 81% of consumers who research a company online before making a purchase and 47% who use the company’s website to do so,1 there have never before been so many opportunities to tap into the global market.
Considering that 76% of online consumers prefer products with information in their native language and that 40% would never buy anything from websites in other languages,2 the next natural step to expand your reach and grow your customer base after establishing the online presence in your home country is to translate your content.
So let us have a look at some numbers to see why translating into German could be a wise choice:
Germany’s economy is one of the largest in the world
In 2022, the German population amounted to 84.3 million people, making Germany the largest consumer market in the European Union and the fourth-largest economy in the world. The German economy accounted for 24.9% of the European Union’s GDP3 and recorded €100.5 billion of revenue in the ecommerce market4.
Germans are the most avid online shoppers in Europe
The Germany Ecommerce Country Report found that German consumers are the ones who are most likely to shop online at least once a month, whereby one in ten German consumers shop online at least once a day and one in four more than once a week.4
Germans have a high reluctance to buy from non-local language websites
Despite their high English proficiency,5 CSA research found that 57% of the German consumers – which is the highest number of the 29 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and South America that were researched – would exclusively buy from local-language websites.2
- Jack Flynn, “20+ Essential Small Business Website Statistics [2023]: How Many Businesses Have a Website,” Zippia, May 12, 2023, https://www.zippia.com/advice/small-business-website-statistics/.
- “Survey of 8,709 Consumers in 29 Countries Finds That 76% Prefer Purchasing Products with Information in Their Own Language,” CSA Research, July 7, 2020, https://csa-research.com/Blogs-Events/CSA-in-the-Media/Press-Releases/Consumers-Prefer-their-Own-Language.
- “Germany – Market Overview,” International Trade Administration | Trade.gov, December 6, 2023, https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/germany-market-overview.
- “Germany Ecommerce Country Report 2023” RetailX, June 8, 2023, https://retailx.net/product/germany-ecommerce-country-report-2023/.
- “Germany | EF English Proficiency Index,” EF Education First, n.d., https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/europe/germany/.