Six out of ten fashion stores in major German cities offer Click & Collect. However, customers looking to use this service frequently encounter an additional obstacle: it is difficult to find on many websites or requires a cumbersome number of steps to reach. This was revealed by our latest study conducted by Localyzer, in which we examined the Click & Collect offerings of 306 stores across the 20 largest German cities.
Hamburg Leads, Berlin Trails Behind
Among the 20 largest cities, there is a clear frontrunner when it comes to in-store order collection: in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg, 89.4 percent of the stores examined offer a Click & Collect service. Frankfurt am Main and Hanover share second place, with 85.71 percent of fashion retailers in both cities providing the service. Third place goes to Bielefeld, where 84.62 percent of surveyed stores have Click & Collect available. Berlin brings up the rear: the capital records the lowest Click & Collect adoption, with only every second fashion store examined offering the service.
Nine Out of Ten Fashion Chains Offer Click & Collect — H&M is the Exception
Of the 306 stores examined, 169 branches belonging to the top ten fashion chains were analysed. Click & Collect is available at 145 of these branches. Nine of the ten fashion chains studied provide the service. The sole exception is H&M, which offers it in none of the 20 cities surveyed. Among the remaining nine chains, the picture is as follows: C&A, Ernsting's Family, and Takko offer Click & Collect across all 20 major cities, placing them joint first in the ranking. Mango comes in second with 19 cities. Only and Zara each cover 18 cities, sharing third place. The service is least prevalent at Breuninger and S. Oliver, both of which make it available in only seven of the 20 cities.
S. Oliver Finishes Last in the Quality Assessment
In addition to availability, the quality of the Click & Collect service across fashion chains was also evaluated — measured by the number of clicks required before the service becomes visible on a store's website.
Takko, C&A, and Ernsting's Family again rank first, having integrated the service directly on their homepage. Peek & Cloppenburg, Zara, and Only follow with one click required to reach the Click & Collect offering. Breuninger's accessibility varies depending on location. Mango requires three steps at all locations, with four required in Nuremberg. S. Oliver consistently requires four clicks at every location, giving it the lowest — and comparatively poorest — visibility of all chains examined.
Independent Retailers: Only 84 Out of 137 Have Implemented Click & Collect
Alongside the chain retailers, Localyzer examined 137 independent fashion retailers across the 20 largest cities. Currently, only 84 of them have Click & Collect in place. The highest density is found in Hamburg, where eight owner-operated fashion stores offer the service. Dresden and Düsseldorf follow with seven each. Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, and Leipzig are close behind with six stores each, while Berlin, Bremen, Munich, and Nuremberg each count five. In Mannheim, the service is nowhere to be found: none of the businesses examined offers in-store collection. Availability also remains low in Stuttgart and Bochum, each recording only one result; Bonn, Dortmund, and Duisburg each have two.
Matthias Lange, Managing Director of Localyzer, comments: "Click & Collect is essentially the ideal instrument for brick-and-mortar retail to compete with online shopping and bring customers back into stores — it combines the convenience of digital purchasing with the personal in-store experience. What this study reveals is sobering: many independent retailers have introduced the service, but without making it genuinely accessible. If it takes five clicks just to find out that in-store collection is even an option, the customer is already long gone."
About the Study
The study examined ten fashion chains with a combined total of 169 branches, as well as up to ten independent retailers per city across the 20 largest German cities — 306 stores in total. Data collection followed a standardised click path starting from each store's homepage. Only online-selectable collection services available at checkout or on the product detail page were counted. Visibility and click depth were recorded. Data collection period: March 2026.
