What is a good conversion rate? There is no openly accessible, methodologically transparent survey for German e-commerce - but there are hard figures on where purchase intent is lost. Averaged across 50 studies, 70.22% of carts are abandoned (Baymard Institute), and 70% of people aged 16 to 74 in Germany ordered online in the past three months (Federal Statistical Office). For online shop operators that means: your own trend and the documented abandonment reasons are a more reliable compass than someone else’s average.
What Is a Good Conversion Rate?
Plenty of figures circulate for conversion rates by industry, yet none of them comes from an open, verifiable survey of the German market. The framing data, by contrast, is solid: 86% of people aged 16 to 74 have shopped online at least once, 70% did so in the past three months (Federal Statistical Office). To put your own rate in context you therefore need a different reference point than someone else’s average.
The most useful benchmark is your own trend: the same measurement, the same counting method, the same period last year. Only then can you say whether a measure worked. Professional consulting helps you set up that measurement cleanly and rule out apparent progress.
What matters is not the absolute value, but continuous improvement relative to your own starting point. Two shops with the same rate can perform very differently if assortment, price level and customer base diverge.
Why Someone Else’s Industry Figures Rarely Hold
A comparison figure is only as good as its origin. The following figures are publicly verifiable - each with survey, date and source:
| Figure | Value | Survey and date |
|---|---|---|
| Average cart abandonment | 70.22% | Baymard Institute, average of 50 studies, as of 22 Sep 2025 |
| Abandoned without purchase intent | 42% | Baymard Institute, survey of online shoppers in the US |
| Most cited fixable reason: extra costs | 40% | Baymard Institute, distribution of abandonment reasons |
| Form elements in an average checkout | 23.48 | Baymard Institute, checkout benchmark |
| Online payment services as a share of online payments | 50% | Deutsche Bundesbank, payment behaviour in Germany 2025 |
| Ordered online in the past three months | 70% | Federal Statistical Office, ICT survey 2025 |
What is missing from this table is missing on purpose: conversion rates by industry, device or channel are not available for Germany in any openly accessible survey. Those who quote such values usually analyse their own customer base. For e-commerce strategies they serve as rough orientation, not as a target.
Setting Up Your Own Measurement Properly
Before any comparison makes sense, your own figure has to be right. Three definitions decide whether two measurements are comparable: what counts as a session, what counts as a conversion and which period is considered. The documented checkout figures provide the frame:
70.22% abandonment
Average across 50 studies on cart abandonment (Baymard Institute) - the starting point of every checkout calculation
23.48 form elements
That many elements an average checkout displays by default (Baymard Institute), 14.88 of them actual input fields
12-14 as the target range
That short a checkout can be according to usability tests (Baymard Institute) - in most cases a 20-60% reduction in elements is possible
Only once these definitions are documented can a change be attributed to a measure. Without them, an adjusted bot filter alone shifts the rate by tenths of a percentage point - and the cause stays hidden. Mobile-first optimization and fast load times are levers whose effect you can only prove with a stable measurement.
In the B2B sector an order often does not end in the shop: approval workflows, quote requests and framework agreements lead to deals that never trigger a shop order. A conversion rate that only counts completed carts then understates the business. For B2B shops every enquiry therefore belongs in the measurement as a target of its own.
Payment Methods in German E-Commerce
Which payment methods customers in Germany actually use online is surveyed regularly by the Deutsche Bundesbank using a payment diary. Online payment services lead with 50% of payment transactions, followed by direct debits and credit transfers at 30% and credit cards at 15% (Deutsche Bundesbank).
Within online payment services the distribution is narrower than the number of providers suggests: around 86% market share goes to the market leader, with the next largest provider following at 7% by transactions (Deutsche Bundesbank). Debit cards still play a small role in e-commerce (4%).
By revenue the picture shifts: direct debits and credit transfers account for 45% of e-commerce revenue (Deutsche Bundesbank). Anyone looking only at the number of transactions underestimates how much weight the classic methods carry for large baskets. Adding payment interfaces should follow the basket sizes that actually occur in your shop.
A method can carry many small payments and still tie up little revenue - or the other way round. The Bundesbank reports both views separately: by revenue, online payment services lose 7 percentage points against their share of transactions (Deutsche Bundesbank). Ranking payment methods by revenue produces a different order than ranking them by transactions.
Cart Abandonment: Where Revenue Is Lost
The average across 50 surveys is 70.22% cart abandonment (Baymard Institute). A large part of that is not a lost sale: 42% of respondents said they left the cart because they were just browsing and not ready to buy (Baymard Institute). The remaining reasons are the ones you can do something about.
The most common abandonment reasons show where checkout optimization should focus:
- Extra costs for shipping, taxes or fees - at 40% the most cited fixable reason (Baymard Institute)
- Delivery too slow - 20% (Baymard Institute)
- Distrust over credit card details - 19% (Baymard Institute)
- Forced account creation instead of guest checkout - 18% (Baymard Institute)
- Checkout too long or too complicated plus errors and crashes - 17% each (Baymard Institute)
- Total cost not visible up front at 12% and too few payment methods at 9% (Baymard Institute)
Baymard puts the potential of a thoroughly reworked checkout at large shops at 35.26% more conversions (Baymard Institute). The figure comes from usability tests of large providers and is an indication, not a promise for an individual shop.
Load Time and Checkout as Levers
Two levers can be documented without detouring through someone else’s comparison figures and measured in your own shop: load time and the length of the checkout.
Load time: Google names fixed targets for the Core Web Vitals - LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1 (Google Search Central). These values are among the signals Google uses for page experience and, unlike external conversion comparisons, can be measured yourself at any time. For shop operators that means: PageSpeed optimization and high-performance hosting act on a quantity you control.
An average checkout displays 23.48 form elements, 14.88 of them actual input fields (Baymard Institute). Usability tests show that 12-14 elements can be enough; in most checkouts a 20-60% reduction in elements is possible (Baymard Institute). Every field removed is one less place where a purchase breaks off.
Payment methods: The documented order in German e-commerce - online payment services, direct debit and credit transfer, credit card - should be reflected in the shop (Deutsche Bundesbank). If the method someone is used to is missing, abandonment is often all that is left: too few payment methods is cited by 9% of those who abandon (Baymard Institute).
Load time, checkout length and payment methods share one property: they are measurable and changeable in your own shop. That makes them superior to comparison figures that cannot be recalculated. An improvement you measured yourself before and after is documented - one that relies on someone else’s average is not.
This article draws on: Baymard Institute (cart abandonment and checkout benchmark), Deutsche Bundesbank (payment behaviour in Germany 2025), the Federal Statistical Office (ICT survey of private households) and Google Search Central (Core Web Vitals). Every figure quoted is backed by survey, date and source.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no openly accessible, verifiable survey of conversion rates by industry for German e-commerce. What holds up is the comparison with your own period last year using the same counting method. As framing data: 70% of people aged 16 to 74 ordered online in the past three months (Federal Statistical Office).
The average across 50 studies is 70.22% (Baymard Institute). 42% of respondents abandoned because they were just browsing. The most cited fixable reason is extra costs for shipping, taxes or fees at 40% (Baymard Institute).
An average checkout displays 23.48 form elements, 14.88 of them actual input fields. Usability tests show that 12-14 elements can be enough; in most checkouts a 20-60% reduction is possible (Baymard Institute).
Online payment services carry 50% of online payment transactions, direct debits and credit transfers 30%, credit cards 15% (Deutsche Bundesbank). Within online payment services the market leader holds around 86% market share (Deutsche Bundesbank).
Google names as targets an LCP within 2.5 seconds, an INP under 200 milliseconds and a CLS under 0.1 (Google Search Central). These values can be measured in your own shop at any time, which makes them a more usable target than external conversion comparisons.
Baymard puts the potential of a reworked checkout at large shops at 35.26% more conversions (Baymard Institute). The figure comes from usability tests and is an indication, not a promise for an individual shop.