Introduction In the world of e-commerce, understanding the tech backbone of successful direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands is key to staying ahead in the game. Here at D2CVille, we're dedicated to uncovering the perfect recipe for success by identifying the essential tools and strategies in the industry. That's why we've created this report in collaboration with Fabrikatör to shed light on what's happening at the top level of the German D2C market and which tools are being used by brands.
This report, which is brought to you by the collaboration of D2CVille Fabrikatör
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But why did we choose the German market?
Being headquartered in Berlin, Germany, we recognize the immense potential of this market. Germany's e-commerce sector has exhibited consistent growth, with Statista projecting a market value hitting €90 billion by the end of 2024 , so the potential is legitimate.
Furthermore, boasting over 80,000 active users, Germany stands as the 5th largest Shopify market , emphasizing its pivotal role in global e-commerce.
Given our proximity and understanding of the market dynamics, we believed that insights from our report would offer unique perspectives tailored to professionals operating within the D2C and e-commerce sectors in Germany.
Methodology On March 26, 2024, we extracted raw data from Store Leads Our selection process for identifying top brands involved applying several filters:
The brands had to be headquartered in Germany. They must be operating on Shopify with an active status. They should have at least one installed app available on the Shopify App Store. These criteria led to a total of 77,159 domains meeting our specifications. From this pool, we selected the top 100 brands based on their Store Leads and platform rankings, aiming to examine the apps they utilize.
💡 For insights into how Store Leads calculates rankings, please refer to their relevant article .
For our analysis, we focused primarily on paid apps used by Shopify brands. Excluded from consideration were infrastructure technologies (such as Google Tag Manager) native Shopify apps (like Reviews)
A limitation we faced during our analysis is that Store Leads has data for only specific apps, meaning that the apps listed here primarily operate on the front-end of the brands’ pages. As a result, the apps that are used for fulfillment, inventory planning, ERP, or similar are not included.
Comparative results Recently, we came across an industry insight report titled “ The Top 100 Shopify Plus App Report ” Jeremy Horowitz and Will Holtz , which piqued our interest. In this report, they analyzed data from Store Leads alongside Shopify metrics to provide valuable insights into leading tools within the Shopify App Store.
Inspired by their approach, we delved into our own data analysis and compared our results with Jeremy and Wills’ to see how they are correlated with the Top 100 German Brands.
Top 100 German D2C Brands The top 100 brands are distributed quite evenly across Germany, with at least one brand present in 11 out of the 16 states. Berlin, Bavaria, and North Rhine-Westphalia emerge as the leading states in terms of the number of brands.
Which regions are home to the top 100 brands German D2Cs?
Regarding the usage of Shopify Plus, our data indicates that more than half of the top brands do not utilize Shopify Plus.
But the numbers are still close.
💡 Finally, we calculated that, on average, the top 100 brands installed approximately 9.56 apps from the Shopify App Store. However, there are outliers, with some brands installing up to 37 apps, while others have installed only one. Conversely, the median number of apps installed is 7, indicating that the distribution is skewed towards fewer installations for a majority of brands.
So, what are those top 100 apps?
100 Most Installed Apps by Top German Brands Our analysis revealed that the top 100 German brands utilize a total of 363 different Shopify apps . Below is a list of the most frequently preferred 100 apps along with their respective categories.
What are your first observations?
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Category Breakdown Now, let's categorize these apps and compare our findings to top 100 Shopify Plus Apps.
Email & SMS Download the report by subscribing to our newsletter!
In total, top 100 brands use 19 different email & SMS apps, showing the relevant importance of the apps in this field. Other email and SMS apps preferred by German brands are, Wisepops, Yotpo: Email Marketing & SMS, and CleverReach, among others.
Klaviyo stands out as the apparent dominant leader in this field, which is unsurprising given its widespread adoption. Meanwhile, Mailchimp remains relevant, with 16 brands incorporating it into their strategies.
In comparison to top 100 Shopify Plus Apps, Brevo emerges as a noteworthy disruptor in the German market, with 7 brands leveraging its services, despite not securing a spot on the top 100.
💡 In our comparison with the top 100 Shopify Plus apps, we noticed a smaller selection of apps in this category. Interestingly, well-known apps like Yotpo SMS, Privy, Postscript, Hubspot, and Dotdigital didn't make it onto our list, despite being featured in the top 100 Shopify Plus apps.It's intriguing to see how a smaller number of brands appear to hold more influence in this scenario.
Reviews Download our report by subscribing to our newsletter!
Among the top 100 brands, a total of 10 different review apps are utilized. Some notable alternatives include Trustpilot, Fera, and Opinew.
💡 In comparison to the top 100 Shopify Plus Apps, it appears that Yotpo is less favored by German brands compared to its adoption on a global scale. Interestingly, Trustpilot, a significant player globally, did not secure a prominent position among the top choices for German brands.
On the other hand, the reviews domain is highly competitive and leaves little room for new challengers to emerge. However there is no clear leader, which suggests an opportunity for other players to compete and capture a larger portion of the market.
Customer Support
Among the top 100 German brands, there are 11 different customer support apps in use. However, Zendesk still stands out as the most popular choice, closely followed by Gorgias and Tidio. This mirrors the insights from top 100 Shopify Plus Apps, but it's worth noting Gorgias' ongoing growth.
💡 We're actually quite surprised by these lower numbers. Interestingly, Reamaze and Freshchat, which ranked among the top 100 Shopify Plus apps, didn't make it onto our list in Germany.This suggests there's still a big opportunity for customer support apps in the German market. We're genuinely excited to see how the competition shapes up in this area in the coming years!
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)
We were genuinely surprised to learn that the top German brands exclusively opt for Klarna for their BNPL operations. In fact, 45 of them rely on this app for such transactions.
💡 When we compare this to the top 100 Shopify Plus Apps, it's evident that other BNPL providers like Afterpay, Sezzle, or Affirm haven’t yet ventured into the German market. This indicates that there is still opportunity for BNPL apps to carve out their space and gain market share in Germany.
Subscriptions
💡 Here's another interesting find: only 8 out of the top 100 German brands are currently using subscription features on their websites, and all of them have chosen Recharge Subscriptions exclusively for this purpose.Considering the potential revenue impact of subscription services, it seems like there's some untapped opportunity for brands here.
On the flip side, there's also a chance for apps to make their mark in this market!
Analytics Download the report by subscribing to our newsletter!
The Top 100 Shopify Plus Apps Report made a spot-on observation by describing the analytics sector as "an industry ripe for disruption." It also predicted that mastering data comprehension will become a significant priority for numerous large brands in the near future.
What we also noticed in our data is that many brands employ a variety of apps to ensure they monitor every moment of their customers' interaction with them.
💡 Besides, there are 12 more analytics tools used by the top 100 German brands in addition to those mentioned. This highlights the importance brands place on understanding and optimizing the customer experience across all touch points.
Privacy
As you'd anticipate in Germany, and throughout the EU as a whole, GDPR and compliance apps are extensively utilized. Consentmo leads the market, but with a close second, we see GDPR Legal Cookie by iubenda and Pandectes.
💡 Even though some apps in this list serve primarily as popup providers, the widespread adoption of various apps by many German brands highlights the importance they place on privacy apps.
Conclusions The top brands are spread out across Germany, with leading states including Berlin, Bavaria, and North Rhine-Westphalia. This suggests a strong e-commerce presence throughout the country. More than half of the top brands opt not to use Shopify Plus, indicating that Shopify's core offerings are sufficient for most. However, the similar numbers show a balanced adoption of Shopify Plus among larger brands. On average, the top 100 brands install around 9.56 apps, showing their reliance on Shopify's ecosystem to expand their store capabilities. This indicates a preference for a moderate number of apps to keep the user experience simple. There are numerous areas ripe for innovation and new app entries, notably in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), subscriptions, analytics, and privacy. The competitive environment for app providers offers opportunities for differentiation and expansion, particularly in less saturated categories. Overall, Shopify remains a fantastic platform for building e-commerce ventures, even though the landscape has become more competitive for both app providers and brands. Additionally, Germany stands out as one of the most important e-commerce markets, and its growth is expected to continue.
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