Consultation on digital platforms
Business customers' experience with marketing and sales activities via digital platforms in Germany
Digital platforms are an important marketing and sales channel for business customers. This relevance is also clearly visible for example in the areas of telecommunications and energy, where comparison sites play a decisive role for consumers and thus also for business customers offering their products there. Platforms allow business users to extend the market reach of their products without the expense of developing their own infrastructure.
However, despite its many advantages, sales via digital platforms can also involve considerable difficulties, particularly for business customers. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), which are increasingly dependent on platforms for their marketing and sales channels, are especially vulnerable. This gives digital platforms the opportunity to unilaterally set the terms of the business relationship at the expense of their business customers and to possibly engage in unfair business practices.
Against this backdrop the Bundesnetzagentur has examined what business customers experience in dealing with digital platforms in Germany. This gave business customers an opportunity to explain whether and in what form they experience difficulties in their marketing and sales activities via digital platforms in Germany. On the basis of the information gathered in this process, an assessment was made as to whether the current legal arrangements provide business customers with sufficient remedial action to quickly and efficiently address difficulties.
During the Bundesnetzagentur’s public consultation between March 2020 and May 2021, a total of 317 business customers reported on their experience with marketing and sales activities via digital platforms in Germany.
Business customers and digital platforms
The definitions used in the consultation are to be seen exclusively in the context of this consultation and are not final assessments.
In the framework of this consultation, business customers are all business providers in Germany, regardless of their size (including SMEs), that perform marketing activities through digital platforms and/or offer products and services to end users or other businesses.
In this consultation, digital platforms are considered intermediaries that enable interaction between two or more user groups such as sellers and buyers and where indirect network effects play an essential role. In addition to platform operators that are important to business customers in the network sectors, they can also be companies from other sectors that also have a digital gatekeeper function for the marketing of products and services. Besides the internationally known platform companies, this consultation also includes smaller and specialised national platforms that are important for product marketing by SMEs. Some examples of participants in the consultation are app stores, comparison sites, online marketplaces and business-to-business e-commerce platforms.
Between March 2020 and May 2021, a total of 317 business customers reported in the Bundesnetzagentur’s public consultation on their experience with marketing and sales activities via digital platforms in Germany. The majority (69%) of the consultation participants are active throughout Germany or the EU and generate annual revenue of less than €2mn (71%).
Digital platforms very important for sales and marketing
Source: own figure. Base: all participants, n =317.
- Sales via digital platforms are rated by 76% of business customers as important or very important.
- Marketing via digital platforms is also considered important or very important by 55% of business customers.
- Overall the majority of the participants consider both marketing activities and sales activities via digital platforms to be significant. However, in direct comparison, sales play a more significant role.
- This is evidenced by the fact that 65% of business customers use digital platforms solely for sales purposes. Another 29% use platforms both for marketing and for sales purposes, and 3% use platforms exclusively as a marketing channel.
- Only 12% of business customers use services by independent agencies (for the strategic optimisation of a range of products, for instance).
Revenue and marketing shares via digital platforms
Source: own figure. Base: all participants, n = 317
- The majority of business customers (60%) make more than half their revenue in Germany via digital platforms.
- In Germany, 29% of business customers spend more than half of their marketing budget on platforms.
- This underscores the tremendous importance of digital platforms for business customers in Germany for their marketing and sales activities.
Heavy dependence on digital platforms
Source: own figure. Base: All participants, n = 317
- Nearly three quarters (77%) of business customers would see themselves having considerable difficulties competing successfully in the German market without the use of digital platforms. Over half of business customers (56%) assume they would not even be able to exist in the market without digital platforms.
Focus on e-commerce platforms
Source: own figure. Base: all participants, n = 284 (no response = 33).
- A total of 284 business customers provided concrete information about their use of digital platforms (multiple answers allowed). More than 470 responses were provided to questions about nearly 50 different platforms from various industries.
- The majority of the participating business customers are from the commerce/e-commerce segment. Individually, they come from various industries such as clothing, books, motor vehicles, furniture, jewellery and many others. As a result, e-commerce platforms are frequently the focus of customer experience reports about digital platforms.
Reports about various difficulties
Source: own figure. Base: all participants, n = 317.
- Generally more than half of business customers reported having experienced difficulties with digital platforms in the areas of complaint-handling (67%), dealing with customer and product ratings (62%), commissions and other fees (61%), the dual role of the platform operator (56%) and ranking and searchability of their own products (54%).
- Most of the customer experience reports to date relate to e-commerce platforms.
These reports, however, provide a mixed picture. Respondents reported difficulties above all with "big", internationally active e-commerce platforms, but there were also individual instances indicating that difficulties could exist with "smaller" platforms as well. The problems with the smaller platforms, however, appear to be less severe.