The new Karstadt owner Benko likely to rehabilitate more close unprofitable stores. Also at Kaufhof dwindling sales. Has the concept department store have a future?
input of the Karstadt department store in Dusseldorf (archive picture) | © Martin Whips / dpa
Who remembers Hertie and hoarding? The two department store chains no longer exist for a long time. Also Karstadt will probably soon be past, and the competitors Kaufhof it could similarly be issued. The days are long gone when the masses flocked to the store with glowing eyes. Attractive to the competition.
In 1980, department stores made just six percent of the total trade turnover. Today they account for 2.6 percent, as the Institute for Trade Research, has calculated. Especially the younger ones prefer to go in cool shops. Customers shopping at H & M and in the media market, they stroll through the modern shopping malls, or order the goods over the internet. These are the three reasons why it is no longer running for Karstadt and Kaufhof little better for.
first Shopping Center are the more attractive “Everything under one roof”
In principle, the basic idea of the department stores still works to offer everything under one roof. Only: the major shopping malls implement them better. Also, they offer a wide range – from fashion to electronics, from books to perfumes – and they make more ago: “With its new modern architecture with attractive restaurants and Verweilbereichen with fountains and the like, the Shopping Center are inviting than many department stores in city centers, were built decades ago, “says Joachim Hurth, Professor of Commercial Management at the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in Wolfsburg.
The classic department store has therefore only there charm where there are no shopping centers. This is less and less the case. Long been the center are raised beyond the major cities. The result: more and more branches of classical department stores lose appeal and falter. This is to be expected that the new Karstadt owner René Benko will examine other houses and ultimately close.
second Better to retailers
There is still, the consumer electronics departments in department stores. Usually near the top, in the fourth or fifth floor, standing toaster, coffee machine and hand blender on the shelves. But the clientele is migrated to Media Markt or Saturn, where the same goods are offered. The situation is similar in consumer electronics. With a fixed to the price advertising and an image to represent electrical products of all kinds, it have the stores made, the department stores to snatch a complete segment.
fashion the situation is even worse. Fashionable clothing for a younger clientele is hard to find in many department stores for years. “The homely offer scares even 50 or 60 years from, because these age groups to dress like younger today,” says Thomas Roeb of the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg in the Rhine river. Fashion chains make it better, rapidly changing collections and to respond to changing trends. Why not just go the boys, but also many older people in the branches of the chains. Similarly, the mass buying sportswear in sporting goods stores and shoes in the shoe business.
3rd However, all goods with one click
The biggest competition is already the Internet: The network offers even more all under one roof. “Was best copies the store’s idea of the universal provider of Amazon,” said the Wolfsburg expert Joachim Hurth. But online retailer expand their product line: Was there at Zalando once only shoes, customers can now also order brand clothing. Now offer several companies on the net to complete outfits, tailored to the needs of the customer. Who must again into the department store?
Especially with products for which the customer needs any advice, the business works excellent. In CDs you can also listen in online, in books virtual scroll a little before they were ordered with one click. And the booming business with fashion on the Internet shows that many customers pack themselves the potential expense, non-matching parts again and need to get back to the post, and not put off.
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