Positive year for German business-to-business mail order sector

German’s business-to-business mail order industry had a better 2013 than 2012, according to a new study by the industry trade association. The German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Trade Association (BVH) said its survey of 120 B2B mailers among its membership saw 52.9% having a “very good” or “good” year, up from 47.5% in 2012.

The number of companies in the survey reporting a bad year remained unchanged at 3%.

The trade body commented that a positive aspect of the survey was that all sizes of company appeared to be doing well, not just larger firms.

“Generally B2B mail order companies were ahead of the overall economic trends in 2013, said Dr Carsten Uthoff, the Creditreform AG chief executive.

“While the German economy was not immune to the weak economic dynamics of the Euro Area, B2B mail order companies were back to their former strength following a temporary setback in the previous year.”

Growth

Among the 120 surveyed German B2B mail order firms, the BVH said 43% were achieving higher sales in 2013 than in the previous year, with the number of orders up in 43.8% of companies.

Almost half (46%) of the firms are forecasting that this year will see sales growth, up from just 40.8% in last year’s survey, with 41.3% expecting fuller order books, up from just 32.5% last year.

Only 6.6% of firms predict a decline in their order books this year, compared to 14.2% in last year’s survey.

A little over a quarter of surveyed companies expanded their work force in 2013, but the proportion expecting to create more jobs this year remained about the same as in last year’s survey, 19%.

The BVH’s survey highlighted a growing trend for B2B mail order companies to grow the number of customer touch points in their network as part of improving the customer experience, and because of growing competition in the industry.

Companies interviewed said there were more competitors entering the market in 2013 than in previous years, including those with new business models.

Expectations are that competitive pressure in the industry is likely to increase, the BVH said.

B2C

The BVH, which has about 300 distance-selling members in all, representing about 75% of the market turnover, said the results of this year’s survey “confirm the positive trends of the entire distance selling business”, since business-to-consumer shipping has been growing as well, thanks to e-commerce.

Christopher Wenk-Fischer, the BVH chief executive, said: “The developments in the B2B mail order sector have great relevance for the B2C mail order business. In particular, the results of B2B shippers can be considered a reliable early indicator of the development of the entire distance selling business.

“All the more gratifying is that both the B2B and the B2C sector have such a successful year behind them. We now look forward to developments in 2014, in which mailers begin with high expectations.”