Investor Guide
2026-10-10 11:45

Does online retail threaten supermarkets in Germany?

Not yet: in 2025 Germans bought €4.12 billion of food online (bevh), about 1.9% of food retail turnover of €217.8 billion (EHI). Including drugstore goods, the online share is 4.9% (HDE), and online sales are growing faster than store sales, so the share is worth watching. But in our view, a supermarket's income today is decided by the lease, the format and the location, not by the internet.

Online holds about 2% of the food market and outgrows it

The three sources count differently, so compare their figures with care. The Bundesverband E-Commerce und Versandhandel (bevh) counts online sales including VAT and the EHI Retail Institute counts food retail turnover excluding VAT, so a share of about 1.9% is only a benchmark. Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE) puts the online share of food and drugstore sales at 4.9%, and the growth of their online sales in 2025 at 10.4%.
Exhibit 1. Online food sales grow faster than the market, yet are 50 times smaller than food retail turnover
Indicator, € billion
2024
2025
Change, %
Online food sales (bevh, incl. VAT)
3.91
4.12
+5.5
Online drugstore sales (bevh, incl. VAT)
3.35
3.50
+4.6
All online sales of goods (bevh, incl. VAT)
80.6
83.1
+3.2
Food retail turnover (EHI, excl. VAT)
209.7
217.8
+3.8
Sources: bevh, 2025 results; EHI Retail Institute (2024 turnover as first reported).
The pandemic boosted online sales only for a time. In 2021 online sales of goods reached €99.1 billion; in 2025, after two years of decline and two of growth, they came to €83.1 billion, 16% below the peak (bevh). For 2026 HDE forecasts nominal growth of 4.3% for online retail as a whole and 1.6% for store-based retail.

Quick delivery did not pay because grocery margins are thin

The start-ups that promised to deliver groceries within minutes have mostly gone: in December 2022 Getir bought Gorillas, and by mid-May 2024 both had left Germany. Flink survived, and REWE is among its largest shareholders (see Part 1 of the series German Prime Retail).
The reasons are economic. In 2026 the Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) found that the average margin in food retail after costs is only a few per cent. On a small basket, almost nothing is left for a courier and a warehouse. The density of the store network also works against delivery. Germany has about 28,700 food stores (BNP Paribas Real Estate, based on HDE data), or one store for roughly every 2,900 inhabitants (our calculation).

For the owner, the lease, format and location matter more

Investors reason the same way. In a Hahn Group survey, 75% of investors ready to buy retail property named supermarkets and discounters as their target. The report attributes the segment's resilience to stable income and a comparatively low dependence on online retail.
The lease, not the sales channel, sets the rent. New and extended stores are mostly let for 15 years (BNP Paribas Real Estate), and while the lease runs, online growth affects the tenant's sales, not the rent. The exception is turnover rent (Umsatzmiete): then it matters whether online orders picked or collected in the store count towards turnover. In our view, online will hit hardest those stores that are already losing: small ones, without parking, with a new competitor next door.

Implications for investors

1. Watch the trend in the online share, not just its level. Online food sales are growing faster than the market — by 5.5% according to bevh, and by 10.4% together with drugstore goods according to HDE — although their share is still about 2%.
2. Check the lease, not the forecasts. While the lease runs, online growth hits the tenant's sales; under turnover rent, what decides is whether online orders count.
3. Judge the store by its format and location. A small store without parking and with a new competitor next door will, in our view, be the first to suffer from online.
What to check:
• the remaining fixed lease term and the legal entity that signed the lease;
• whether the lease provides for turnover rent, and whether online orders picked or collected in the store count towards turnover;
• the store's size, parking and competitors against the chains' requirements for new sites;
• the latest bevh and HDE data on the online share and its growth, adjusted for differences in method.
See also: Why are supermarkets considered a defensive asset?; German food retail in figures: 2026; Which matters more when buying a supermarket — the tenant or the location?
Sources: bevh, e-commerce results for 2025 (presentation for the 2026 press conference); HDE Online Monitor 2026 (press release of 3 June 2026); EHI Retail Institute (as reported by Lebensmittel Rundschau, 3 September 2026); Bundeskartellamt, press release of 28 September 2026; BNP Paribas Real Estate, Grocery-Investmentmarkt Deutschland, Q4 2025 (number of stores based on HDE data, lease terms); Destatis, population as of 31 December 2025; Hahn Group, Retail Real Estate Report 2026/2027 (as reported by LEBENSMITTEL PRAXIS, 3 September 2026); WirtschaftsWoche (2024) and Supermarktblog (2026) on Getir, Gorillas and Flink; the series German Prime Retail, Part 1; Gordon Real Estate Group calculations.
Photo: Jan-Philipp Thiele / Unsplash
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