According to a current Eurostat data analysis by the Institute for Trade, Sales and Marketing at the University of Linz, the online sales share of total retail spending increased by just 0.2 percentage points to 11.5 percent. In 2020, the online share increased by 1.4 percentage points.
Overall, domestic consumers spent around 8.9 billion euros in online shops last year, of which 3.3 billion euros with providers in Austria and 5.6 billion euros abroad, for example at Amazon, Zalando & Co. Zum Comparison: in 2019 it was 7.2 billion euros and in 2020 it was already 8.4 billion euros. In the pre-crisis year of 2019, 57 percent of Austrian consumers’ online shopping went to international retailers, in the first Corona year of 2020 it was 62 percent and in the previous year 63 percent.
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“2020 was an exceptional year”
However, the proportion of online shoppers in the population (16-74 years) fell from 66 to 63 percent in Germany in 2021. “This shows that 2020 was an exceptional year that brought an online boom due to Corona,” said WKÖ trade chairman Rainer Trefelik on Thursday at an online press conference. “Customers have apparently learned to deal with the pandemic situation and have normalized their shopping behavior somewhat.” The flattening of the online boom in Austria is “a distinction for stationary trade”.
Internet trading is spread to varying degrees in the individual EU countries. While in Bulgaria and Italy the share of online shoppers among all consumers is only 33 and 44 percent respectively, in Sweden and Denmark it is 87 and 91 percent respectively. The EU average is 66 percent. The IHaM Institute in Linz analyzed Eurostat data for the “EU-27 online shopping report” on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce. It is “remarkable” that in Austria, at 37 percent, “such a large proportion does not shop online,” according to the Linz trade professor Christoph Teller. The equivalent of around 200,000 fewer people would have shopped online in 2021.
More and more people are buying groceries online
Online food retailing grew particularly strongly in Austria last year from a low level. In this area, the proportion of online shoppers is 12 percent, which corresponds to an increase of 7 percentage points, according to Iris Thalbauer, managing director of the WKÖ federal division trade. However, this development relates primarily to urban areas.
WKÖ trade chairman Trefelik appealed to politicians to improve the framework conditions for trade. The industry is under pressure from supply chain problems, rising energy costs and foreign online retailers. “There must be fair rules of the game – both between online and offline providers and between the large online platforms and the small online retailers,” said Trefelik. Among other things, the early introduction of a minimum income tax at OECD level is necessary. The dealers in Austria would also have to “invest and maintain the channels” in their online business.
Higher energy and packaging costs are a big issue in the retail industry. “Cushing up the rising energy prices for all domestic trading companies is a very important point in the current situation,” said the WKÖ trade chairman. The abolition of the mask requirement for employees and customers in supermarkets, pharmacies and drugstores must also be implemented soon.
Source: Nachrichten
