A similar article on Chinese and their Cars will be very welcome. The
VW Golf, sold as the VW Satana in China is China's biggest selling
car.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
How the Germans Drive and Shop
April 30, 2008
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550708,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550708-2,00.html
Editor's Note: This is the third installment of a week-long series.
4:00 p.m. After work -- the Germans and their Cars
When it comes to driving on the autobahn, Germans prefer to do so in a
Volkswagen Golf. Given the option, though, they would rather be
driving an Audi. Germans also have little love for retail therapy.
They painstakingly plan their trips to stores and the amount of time
they spend in them is shrinking.
The average car owned by Germans stands in a gravel driveway behind a
green wire fence. It is a six-year-old, silver-metallic VW Golf with a
moderately powerful, 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine, central locking
system, electronic window openers and air-conditioning. No other car
is requested or sold more often. "It's a good car," says Elvan Ongün.
Ongün is 45 and wears boots, jeans and jewelry. He owns a company on
the outskirts of Berlin called D.E.A.-Automobile. The business began
as a gas station, which no longer exists today. Ongün has been in the
used-car business for the last 12 years. He operates at the lower end
of the market, where ****ny new showrooms are unknown, and where there
are no colorful brochures or lattes for waiting customers. Ongün
focuses on the basics. He sells cars, nothing else.
Germans spend an average of €8,400 ($13,440) for a used car. This gets
them a 19-year-old Mercedes 560 SEL with a quarter-million kilometers
on the odometer -- or a Korean Kia Picanto with only a handful of
kilometers under its belt. But for most Germans, the Mercedes is too
old and the Kia too puny. Instead, they tend to go for a car from the
broad center of the automotive world, the compact class -- a Golf.
The Golf is largely classless, the way Germany once wanted to be -- at
least before the gap between rich and poor started to grow in recent
years. A Golf always looks good, as long as it's painted black or
silver. And it never seems out of place, neither at the curb in front
of the corner bar nor parked at the opera. An Opel, on the other hand,
only works in front of a bar. Women prefer VW or Ford, while men have
a fondness for BMW and Mercedes.
Ongün specializes in VWs and Audis, which means that he sells the car
Germans buy most frequently and the one they would most like to see
themselves in: the Audi A4.
The average German buys his or her first car, usually used, at 29, and
then moves up to the first new car about 12 years later. When Germans
buy a new car, they keep it for eight-and-a-half years, driving it
122,950 kilometers (76,414 miles) and changing the oil every 16,230
kilometers (10,087 miles).
In 2007, German drivers spent an average of €241 ($386) on maintenance
and €163 on repairs. To keep their cars looking good, Germans wash
them nine times a year. Four out of 10 accidents happen with women at
the wheel, mostly because they ignored a right-of-way or didn't see
another car while making a turn. Men are more likely than women to
speed, drive while intoxicated and misjudge distances while passing
another car.
DPA
Silver-Metallic VW Golfs are the the most popular cars in Germany, but
the Audi A4 is the most desired.
To be able to afford their cars, the Germans take out loans to cover
just under 30 percent of the purchase price, and used car buyers are
just as likely to pay off their loans on time as new car buyers.
Before Ongün puts a car on his lot, he has it thoroughly washed and
cleaned, especially the interior. About a quarter of Germans under 30
have had *** in their cars.
As in other countries, cars are increasingly being sold on the
Internet in Germany. Eighty percent of Germans use the Internet to
gather information while buying a car. In 2007, 970,000 used cars were
sold through the Internet. Ongün isn't very happy about this
phenomenon, since it is taking away some of his own sales.
5:00 p.m. How the Germans shop and consume
Wolfgang Twardawa is standing in a Rewe supermarket in a suburb of the
western German city of Nuremberg. A thickset, 64-year-old man, he is
wearing a dark coat and a red tie. It is 5:00 p.m., almost exactly the
time at which Germans are most likely to shop. Germans spend an
average of 10 minutes a day shopping, and the amount of time they
spend in shops is steadily declining. Twardawa is the head of consumer
research at the Association for Consumer and Market Research (GfK) in
Nuremberg, one of the five largest market research institutes in the
world.
At GfK, roughly 9,000 employees gather market information from 90
countries. They analyze consumer behavior and purchasing decisions in
20,000 German households, capturing the data with so-called in-home
scans, a sort of electronic diary in which consumers record the types
of goods they buy as well as the prices and locations of their
purchases. Twardawa has been in charge of GfK's consumer panel
division for the past 35 years.
The composite average Germans created by advertising agency Jung von
Matt -- Sabine Müller and Thomas Müller -- consume according to what
market researcher Twardawa calls their "gender-specific involvement."
In other words, very differently. She buys mostly food, cosmetics and
clothing. He craves power and control, loves numbers and machines and
buys technology: mobile phones, Blackberrys, laptops and, most of all,
cars. More and more cosmetics are being sold for the metro***ual man.
Twenty-five years ago, cosmetics giant Nivea had only one male skin
care product in its line-up. Today it has 20. Nowadays, 42 percent of
the buyers of a Dyson vacuum cleaner are men, and companies market
full-body shavers and everything imaginable for joggers and amateur
chefs. Otherwise, however, not much has changed.
"When it comes to consumption behavior, emancipation has stood still
since the 1960s," says Twardawa." The person who evaluates, selects
and buys products is the critical factor, and that person is still
Sabine Müller.
In the shopping arena, the man is usually in charge of little more
than heavy and bulky items. He drives to beverage supermarkets once a
week, on average, where he buys in bulk. The typical German woman
shops three to four times as much as her male counterpart, using the
family's second car to buy smaller and more sophisticated products, as
well as necessities.
DPA
Fifty-four percent of Germans say they pay attention to price first
when shopping.
Eighty thousand brands are advertised on the German market alone,
twice as many brands as there were 20 years ago. Nowadays, German
shops are open for longer hours, and as a society, Germany is becoming
more flexible as it ages. In fact, nothing is the way it used to be. A
decade ago, stores still closed early in the evening on working days
and early in the afternoon on Saturdays. Today, you can shop in many
cities until 10 p.m. or midnight six days out of the week.
Twardawa embarks on his tour of an ordinary supermarket. He walks past
three registers, keeping to the right. "Germans walk to the right," he
says, "unless they're left-handed." By the time he gets to the produce
department, says Twardawa, the typical consumer pulls out his shopping
list. It typically includes laundry detergent, coffee, milk and frozen
items.
"Germans painstakingly plan their shopping," he says. "They don't like
to shop, and they want to be able to find the items on their list
without wasting any time." When it comes to the frequency and duration
of shopping for so-called "fast-moving consumer goods," or
necessities, the older the consumer, the more frequent the shopping. A
24-year-old woman goes shopping on 116 days each year, while a
70-year-old woman does it more than twice as often, namely on 247
days. Young people are more likely to shop in self-service
supermarkets than at smaller stores with counter service.
The combined purchasing power of all Germans equals €1.488 trillion
($2.381 trillion) a year, or €18,000 ($28,800) per capita. In 2008,
each German will spend about €700 ($1,120) more than in 2006, which
means that affluence is growing faster than inflation.
On average, a Germans spend a quarter of their income on rent and
rapidly rising incidental rental expenses, like electricity, gas and
water. About 10 percent of incomes are saved or invested. Spending on
entertainment has increased slightly. While the English value service,
the French variety and the Italians tend decide spontaneously what
they want to buy, Germans are considered both environmentally
conscious consumers and bargain-hunters.
The idea that thriftiness is cool, the rallying cry of consumers for
whom quality is not paramount, may be a trend that has already seen
its day, but Germans are nevertheless still looking for savings.
Fifty-four percent of Germans say that they pay attention to price
first when shopping, while only 44 percent look for quality -- the
highest level in Europe.
The discount supermarket is a German invention. The Albrecht brothers
invented Aldi in the 1950s, and other discounters followed, including
Penny, Norma, Netto and Lidl. Every second European discounter has its
headquarters in Germany, and the average German lives within a
five-minute drive of at least three different discounters.
Market researcher Twardawa behaves like many men in his age group. He
rarely shops, instead leaving the task to his wife. Sometimes he
carries her shopping bags to the car. And when his wife tries on
dresses in the city's boutiques, he walks across the market square in
Nuremberg, his favorite place to shop, or waits for her in a tavern.
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