Despite growth in Germany’s e-commerce market within the past year, Deutsche Card Services GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank Group AG, believes merchants should support multiple languages on their websites to attract international customers and enable Germany to compete better with other European e-commerce merchants.
Deutsche Card Services recently produced a report “E-Commerce Report 2010” based on its evaluation of more than 24 million transactions processed on the company’s platform between October 2008 and September 2009. Consumers from elsewhere in Europe, including the United Kingdom, are important for Germany’s e-commerce, but the language barrier prevents many international customers from making purchases at German online retailers, the research found.
The benefits of globalization are especially visible in Germany’s e-commerce market, but most international consumers prefer to use British online shops to ones in Germany, the data show. Only 10.4% of international consumers purchase goods and services from German online merchants, while 53.6% prefer to shop in United Kingdom-based shops.
Germany’s e-commerce market does continue to grow, but “it is small in comparison to that of the country’s competitors because most German online shops only address German-speaking customers,” Jens Mahlke, Deutsche Card Services senior manager, tells PaymentsSource.
As such, the addition of multiple languages to Germany’s online shops “is the first step to remove this hurdle and target international customers,” Mahlke says.
Once the language barrier is removed, online merchants should then use a reliable security platform to increase sales without “accepting the higher risk potentially involved in international trade,” he adds.
Germany’s e-commerce market has the potential to grow, but language is definitely a barrier, Enrico Camerinelli, a senior analyst with Boston-based Aite Group LLC, tells PaymentsSource. “English is the most-common language used, However, some consumers my not be comfortable using English” when making purchases or speaking with the merchant or customer service, he adds.
Aside from overcoming language barriers, Germany and other countries in Europe also should ensure their platforms are “SEPA compliant so international consumers may make purchases without paying extra foreign-fee charges,” Camerinelli contends.
SEPA, or Single Euro Payments Area, is an initiative the European banking industry launched in 2002 to link European Union and other euro-based countries’ separate national payment systems into a standardized debit system used for cross-border transactions.
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
