Corona-pandemic: retail in crisis mode

In the Corona pandemic has become shopping for many consumers, the necessary Evil. Shopping as a community experience, the opportunity to stroll through the city, Browsing the shelves in a world with a mask of duty and distance, the rules of no place. For the stationary retail trade, the pandemic developed, therefore, to the greatest crisis since the post-war period. A good 80 per cent of retailers see their existence threatened, which resulted in a recently published study by the trade Association Germany (HDE).

This dramatic development has not come about by chance. The stationary retail trade by the Corona-crisis temporarily, the presence of the unique feature of the lost. The city as a marketplace and centre of Commerce it were not for more than a month, as long as the business of health had to close protection. But now, since the stores are open for some time again, from many customers. If they all come back again sometime in the future, is questionable. Because during the high phase of the pandemic, and trained in consumer behavior reverberate could, with great probability, to the detriment of many brick and mortar retailers. In surveys, every second consumer said, anyway, to want to in the future, online shopping – also Were acquired prior to the crisis, usually in the Store.

For years is sued

For the retail outlets that would be a Disaster, because his Golden days were over long before the pandemic. The Institute for retail research estimates that in the next ten years, up to 64,000 trading companies could disappear from the market. In this forecast, the consequences of the Corona are in crisis, not yet.

For years, business owners complain about the growing Online trade, the abjagt them market share. In fact, revenues from Hiking for several years from offline to online. Instead of investing in the digitization of the response of many brick and mortar retailers with well-known methods: selling surfaces were enlarged, although the final consumption expenditure of households only a little changed. In the German inner cities, the same branch moved the chains with the same store concept. The pedestrian zones are degraded, more and more consumers lost interest in there to do their shopping.