Who Sells Beauty in Germany? Douglas, dm, Rossmann, Niche Beauty and the Rest, Explained for Brands

First, the Sephora question

I get asked this in almost every first call. Yes, Sephora is in Germany. It has run a German online shop and shop-in-shop corners inside Galeria department stores for several years, and on 10 April 2026 it opened its first own store in Germany, around 300 square metres on Sendlinger Straße in Munich. That is a real signal of intent.

But it is one store and a handful of corners in a country of 84 million people. And the corners depend on Galeria, which entered preliminary insolvency proceedings in October 2026 for the fourth time in its recent history. If your European plan is built on "we are in Sephora France, so Sephora will take us into Germany", you do not yet have a German plan. Douglas is the reference for prestige here. dm and Rossmann are the reference for everything under 20 euros.

The five systems at a glance

1. Prestige perfumery: Douglas and the regional chains

Douglas is the system. The Douglas Group operated 1,970 stores across Europe at 31 March 2026, and Germany is its home and largest market. It is also an online retailer and, since 2021, a marketplace that opens its site to third-party brands without a wholesale listing. For most prestige brands, "we are in Douglas" is the sentence that opens every other door in DACH.

Getting there is a different matter. Douglas buys by category, works with planograms that are fixed months ahead, and expects a brand to arrive with awareness, a clear price architecture, staff training and a marketing budget for the launch. Many international brands enter through the marketplace first, prove sell-through on douglas.de, and move to a wholesale listing later. Others come in through a German distributor who already sits at the Douglas table.

Around Douglas sit the regional perfumery chains. Parfümerie Pieper, strong in North Rhine-Westphalia, was sold to the Konckier family and Groupe Bogart on 1 July 2026. Parfümerie Akzente, Mussler and a few dozen independent perfumeries are organised through buying groups. Müller, the drugstore chain, runs proper perfumery counters with selective brands in many of its larger stores and five dedicated Müller Beauty stores in Austria. These regional players are often the realistic first prestige listing for a brand that Douglas is not yet ready to take.

2. Drugstores: dm, Rossmann, Müller, Budni

If you want to understand German beauty, start here. The Drogeriemarkt is where most Germans buy skincare, body care, hair care and colour cosmetics, and it is a far more sophisticated channel than the word "drugstore" suggests.

• dm-drogerie markt, Karlsruhe. More than 2,000 stores in Germany and around 4,190 across Europe. German revenue of 13.27 billion euros in the financial year to September 2025. Germany's most trusted retailer in the 2026 Kundenmonitor survey. Strong own brands, strong natural segment, increasingly open to international and Asian brands.
• Rossmann, Burgwedel. 2,342 stores in Germany and 10.5 billion euros of German revenue in 2025. Faster to list trend products than dm and known for seasonal "new in" waves that currently feature glass-skin sprays, retinol alternatives and scalp care.
• Müller, Ulm. 578 stores in Germany out of 968 in total, including 103 in Switzerland and 109 in Austria. Larger formats with perfumery counters, toys and stationery. The closest thing to a prestige-meets-drugstore hybrid in DACH.
• Budni, Hamburg. Around 190 stores, mostly in the Hamburg region, with a reputation for curated, local and sustainable ranges, and now part of the Edeka group's ecosystem.

What the drugstore buyers expect is volume, compliance and a reason. Volume, because a national listing means 2,000 stores from week one. Compliance, because their own compliance teams will audit your file before the first order. And a reason, because shelf space is the scarcest resource in German retail. In 2026 the reasons that work are clinical evidence, Korean and Japanese formulations, scalp care, microbiome skincare and daily SPF. Trade press reported in October 2026 that cosmetics from China and South Korea are taking visible shelf space in German drugstores for the first time.

Listings happen in windows, usually twice a year, and almost always through a German sales agent or distributor who already has the relationship. A cold email from abroad to a dm buyer does not get an answer. A warm introduction with a complete file and a trend argument does.

3. Department stores and niche retail

This is where most prestige and indie brands actually start in Germany, and where the founder story matters.

• Breuninger, Stuttgart. Thirteen houses in Germany and Austria after the opening in Hamburg in April 2025, plus a strong online shop. The most fashion-led beauty floors in the country, and a buyer team that takes real positions on new brands.
• KaDeWe Group. KaDeWe in Berlin, Alsterhaus in Hamburg and Oberpollinger in Munich, owned by Thailand's Central Group since the 2024 restructuring. Europe's most visited beauty halls, with a bias towards luxury and fragrance.
• Ludwig Beck, Munich. One house on Marienplatz with one of the largest selective fragrance floors in Europe. A small listing here carries weight far beyond Munich.
• Galeria. Germany's remaining department store chain, 83 stores, in preliminary insolvency proceedings since October 2026. A listing is possible but not a place to build on this year.
• Niche Beauty, Hamburg. The reference retailer for indie and clinical brands, online and in store, with a buying team that reads international launches closely.
• Frau Tonis Parfum in Berlin and Aus Liebe zum Duft online, both for niche fragrance, plus a scattering of concept stores in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Düsseldorf and Cologne.

What they expect is a story they can tell, a founder they can put in front of customers, a period of exclusivity in Germany, and the patience to grow from a first order that will look small. In return you get the reference that drugstore and perfumery buyers want to see before they talk to you.

4. Pharmacies: the dermocosmetics route

Germany has around 17,000 pharmacies, each independently owned by a pharmacist, each supplied by the large wholesalers Phoenix, Noweda, Sanacorp and Gehe. Together they form the largest dermocosmetics channel in Europe. Brands such as La Roche-Posay, Eucerin, Avène and Vichy built their German business here, and newer clinical brands follow the same path.

The entry ticket is specific. You need a PZN, the pharmaceutical central number that identifies every product in the wholesale systems. You need dermatological evidence, because the pharmacist will be asked. You need training material in German and, ideally, a field force or a distributor with one. And you need to accept that pharmacies buy through wholesalers, so your first listing is with Phoenix or Noweda, not with the pharmacy itself.

One thing to watch: the line between pharmacy and drugstore is moving. dm launched a health concept called dm-med and a regional court in Karlsruhe is expected to rule on it in December 2026. Whichever way that goes, the drugstores want a piece of the dermocosmetics business, and that creates openings for brands with evidence.

5. Online: marketplaces and pure players

Germany is Europe's largest e-commerce market and beauty has overtaken fashion in cross-border online sales in Europe. Five platforms matter.

• Douglas.de and the Douglas marketplace. The marketplace lets brands sell through douglas.de without a wholesale listing, via connectors such as ChannelEngine or Channable. For prestige brands this is the most useful first step in Germany, because a Douglas presence is read as a reference by every other buyer.
• Flaconi, Berlin. Germany's largest beauty pure player, prestige-led, works with brands directly and through distributors.
• Zalando Beauty. Fashion traffic, strong in colour cosmetics and trend skincare, partner programme for brands with EU logistics.
• Amazon.de. The biggest reach and the strictest gatekeeper. Amazon checks your LUCID packaging number and blocks listings without it, requires German product pages and expects an EU returns address.
• Notino from the Czech Republic and lookfantastic.de from the UK sell into Germany at scale, but a listing there is read by German buyers as a cross-border channel, not as German market presence.

Whatever you choose, one rule. Keep the same retail price on every platform and in every store. German buyers compare, and a brand that is cheaper on Amazon than at Douglas loses Douglas.

Two more routes: natural retail and spa

Natural and organic. Germany has a dedicated channel for certified natural cosmetics: Reformhaus stores, the organic supermarkets Alnatura and Denn's Biomarkt, hundreds of independent Bioläden, and online specialists such as Ecco Verde. The entry ticket is a certification the channel recognises, COSMOS, Natrue or BDIH, and a price point that respects the channel's customers. dm and Rossmann also run large natural segments, so a certified brand often has two routes at once.

Spa and professional. German hotel spas, day spas and medical spas buy through specialist distributors and at trade fairs such as the Beauty Forum in Munich and Düsseldorf. For brands with a treatment protocol, this channel builds credibility before retail, and it is where many of our clients from the UK and the Nordics start.

Distributor or direct?

A German distributor imports under its own Responsible Person, holds stock in Germany, invoices in euros, serves retailers in German and already knows the buyers. For that it takes a margin and almost always asks for exclusivity in DACH, usually for three years, with a marketing commitment from you.

Going direct works when three things are in place: an EU entity or at least EU stock, a sales lead who speaks German and can travel, and the patience to build the retailer relationships yourself. Brands that have those three things keep the margin and the control. Brands that do not usually spend a year learning why the buyers did not reply.

The mistake I see most often is the hybrid that is not a decision: a distributor conversation in parallel with direct emails to the same buyers. German retail is small at the top. The buyers talk to each other, and a brand that approaches them twice looks disorganised.

Austria and Switzerland

Austria mirrors Germany at a smaller scale. Drugstore is dominated by Bipa, dm and Müller. Perfumery by Douglas and Marionnaud. The buying teams sit in Vienna and Salzburg, and a German listing is usually the ticket in. Austria has its own packaging licensing and, since October 2026, a parcel tax that large online sellers pay.

Switzerland is a separate market with a separate customs border and its own cosmetics law. Prestige runs through Manor, Globus, Douglas, Marionnaud and Coop's Import Parfumerie. Mass runs through Migros, Coop and Müller, which has 103 Swiss stores. Pharmacies and drugstores such as Amavita and Sun Store carry dermocosmetics. Swiss retailers expect a Swiss importer who acts as the responsible person on the label and handles customs. Prices are higher and so are the expectations on service.

How to choose your first system

1. Start with the price. Under 20 euros at retail, you are a drugstore brand, whatever your packaging says. Between 30 and 80, you are perfumery or niche. Above that, niche and department store.
2. Then the proof. A listing at Harrods, Galeries Lafayette, Mecca or a national pharmacy chain at home is currency in Germany. A listing on a single cross-border website is not.
3. Then the file. If your EU compliance is not complete, no system will talk to you. Read our guide to selling cosmetics in Germany before you approach anyone.
4. Then the first reference. One strong listing in the right system beats five weak ones across systems. Choose the retailer whose customers already buy brands like yours, and give them a reason to be first.

Questions brands ask us

Tity Sonko

Founder and Managing Director of SONKO Consulting GmbH in Leverkusen, Germany. Tity works with international prestige beauty brands on their entry into Germany, Austria and Switzerland, from the first compliance check to the first retail order. She writes the weekly newsletter The DACH Prestige Signal.