Germany has always had a strong mail order culture. Growing up in the Netherlands in the 80s, my parents always had some German mail order catalogues lying around. Later, when I started reading German mtb magazines, they would often come with paper catalogues from the likes of Canyon. Naturally, when the internet arrived, the online sales model was quickly embraced. People over there are "pro-active" consumers, doing their own research, comparing specs and prices, finding the best value for their money.
When I moved to North America ten years ago, it took me a while to decipher the cultural differences. People are "passive consumers" here, they want to have a "guy" who knows their name, "understands their situation", recommends "what is good for them", gives them "deals". However, this appears to be changing and some shops are better at seeing and adapting to that change than others. Bikemag had an article recently about the rise of high-end consumer-direct mtb brands and it said something like "this trend caught shops completely off-guard"....