Despite the persistently challenging macroeconomic conditions, the German retail sector is proving resilient, but is still undergoing far-reaching structural change. This is the conclusion of the retail section of the ZIA Spring Report on the Real Estate Industry 2026, which was prepared by BBE Handelsberatung together with the IPH Group.
"The structural change in the retail sector continues, but at the same time opens up new opportunities for sustainable properties that react flexibly to changing consumption and usage requirements. Brick-and-mortar retail remains extremely important for cities, as it is the trigger for many people to visit the city centre," says Joachim Stumpf, Managing Director of BBE Holding and the IPH Group.
The study shows an increasing spread in market development. This is particularly evident in food compared to non-food products. While the food segment recorded a 44.8 percent increase in sales in the period from 2010 to 2025, non-food sales fell by 8.6 percent in the same period. Among the winners are discounters, who benefit from the increased price sensitivity of many consumers. At the same time, brand manufacturers are also pushing ahead with their expansion and are increasingly setting up their own store formats in order to reach their customers directly. Large space operators are increasingly supplementing their strategies with smaller city formats. Another impetus for expansion comes from health and beauty concepts, which are increasingly pushing into highly frequented shopping locations. However, the most stable pillar of stationary retail remains local supply – i.e. food and drugstore products.
The losers, on the other hand, include the medium-sized non-food retailers, which are suffering massively from staff shortages, unresolved succession plans and the growing competitive pressure from online retailing. Especially in the case of inner-city assortments such as textiles, shoes and sports, it can be observed that the stationary share of sales has now fallen below the 50 percent mark in many cases.
