For German & DACH Brands
Selling online in Germany means meeting some of the most detailed e-commerce rules in Europe, and competitors or consumer associations can send an Abmahnung, a formal warning letter, when a shop gets them wrong. If you're looking for a Shopify Agentur that understands both the platform and those rules, Skill Align builds stores where the Impressum, withdrawal information, unit prices and checkout wording are part of the theme, not afterthoughts.
As a Shopify developer for Germany and the wider DACH region, our fully remote team serves brands in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Cologne. Your first step can be a free audit of your Shopify store.
Shopify brands we've worked with
We're not lawyers and don't write legal texts; that's for your lawyer or a specialist legal-text provider. We give every required element a proper place in the store, whether during a new Shopify store setup or an audit of an existing shop.
An Impressum under §5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG), privacy policy, AGB, withdrawal policy, and shipping and payment information, each one click away from every page, mobile included.
Prices including VAT with a note on shipping costs, delivery times, and the Grundpreis (price per kilogram, liter and so on) where PAngV requires it. Shopify's unit price fields hold the data; the theme must display it beside every price, collection grids included.
An advertised reduction generally has to refer to the lowest price of the previous 30 days. We set up compare-at prices and sale badges so reductions can be displayed in line with that rule.
The order button must make clear the order is binding and payable, typically ‘zahlungspflichtig bestellen’. Shopify's checkout language settings let us replace the default wording.
Confirmation emails carrying the withdrawal information and model withdrawal form. EU rules requiring an online withdrawal function were due to apply from mid-2026, so we check your setup against current guidance.
Since December 2024, the EU's General Product Safety Regulation expects listings to show manufacturer details, an EU responsible person where needed, and safety information. We store these in metafields so they appear on every relevant product.
The Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz, Germany's implementation of the European Accessibility Act, has applied since June 28, 2025. Most consumer online shops are covered; micro-enterprises are largely exempt for services, but check where your business falls. The technical benchmark is broadly WCAG 2.1 AA, and shops are expected to publish information on how they meet the requirements. Our accessibility work focuses on:
A card-first checkout that performs well in the US often underperforms in Germany. German shoppers lean heavily on PayPal, Klarna, SEPA direct debit (Lastschrift) and buying on invoice, known as Kauf auf Rechnung, where they pay after the goods arrive. Leaving out a familiar method is one of the quickest ways to lose an order at the last step.
Which methods you can offer depends on your payment provider and what Shopify Payments currently supports in Germany. Invoice payment usually comes through a provider that runs the credit check and carries the default risk. We compare options, install them and test the full path from checkout to refund.
Good German copy starts with a decision most translation tools skip: formal Sie or informal du. Fashion and lifestyle brands often choose du, while premium, health and B2B brands tend to stay with Sie. Whichever you pick has to run consistently through product pages, emails, checkout and customer service replies.
German words also run long. Compound nouns break buttons, menus and filter labels designed for English, so we design for longer strings and enable proper hyphenation. Shopify Markets gives the German version its own URL path or domain, euro pricing and hreflang tags. Our team works in English, so copy should be written or reviewed by a native speaker; our custom Shopify theme development makes sure it fits.
DHL leads German parcel delivery, with Hermes, DPD and GLS as common alternatives. Many shoppers send orders to a DHL Packstation, which uses a customer number (Postnummer) in the address, so checkout guidance and fulfillment need to handle those addresses. We also show delivery times on product pages and build a returns flow that matches your returns policy.
Before shipping to German consumers, your packaging must be registered in the LUCID register under the VerpackG and licensed with a dual system; electronics and batteries carry further registrations. These sit outside Shopify, but we raise them during discovery so they don't delay launch.
German VAT is 19%, or 7% for reduced-rate goods such as most food and books. Once your sales to consumers in other EU countries exceed €10,000 a year in total, you generally charge the customer's local VAT rate and can report it through the One-Stop Shop (OSS). Shopify can apply destination VAT rates and keep prices VAT-inclusive in every EU market, so a €49 product can stay €49 for a shopper in Vienna.
Switzerland is different: outside the EU, priced in francs, with customs and Swiss VAT to plan for. Shopify Markets lets one store serve Germany, Austria and Switzerland with separate currencies, languages and rules. If the UK is next, see how we approach Shopify for UK brands after Brexit.
Got Questions?
No. Legal texts should come from a lawyer or a specialist legal-text provider, ideally one that updates them when the law changes. We implement them properly: the right pages, linked from the footer and checkout, included in order emails, and formatted so they stay readable on mobile. We're happy to work alongside your legal advisor.
For anything beyond strictly necessary cookies, yes. Under the GDPR (DSGVO) and the TDDDG, analytics, advertising and most marketing pixels need consent before they load. We connect a consent banner to Shopify's Customer Privacy API and set up Google Consent Mode v2, so tracking respects each visitor's choice while Google can still model conversions where it supports that.
Invoice payment is usually added through a provider such as Klarna, which handles the credit check and takes on the risk of non-payment. Availability depends on your business, your provider and your settings. We help you choose, install and test it, and make sure invoice orders flow correctly into fulfillment and refunds.
Our team works in English, and we're fully remote with no German office; we'd rather say that up front. We build the German storefront technically, with Shopify Markets, translation workflows and a theme designed for longer text, while final product and marketing copy should be written or approved by a native speaker who knows your brand.
Landing pages start from about €280, and complete custom stores from $960+. Nothing is sold as a fixed package. Following a free 30-minute call, we send an itemized proposal within 24 hours, so the cost of compliance setup, payment integrations and translation is visible before you decide. Post-launch support is included.
Simpler stores can go live in 7-14 days; full custom builds typically take 3-4 weeks. In Germany the timeline usually depends less on development than on outside inputs: legal texts, packaging registration, payment provider approval and translated copy. We map those dependencies in the first days so they run in parallel with the build.
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