Large department stores are disappearing from many city centers, and vacancies are affecting many shopping streets. This is increasingly stopping people from going into the city to shop. How can this development be stopped and how can new solutions be implemented? The discussants in the SWR consumer program addressed these and other questions “Get to the point, Baden-Württemberg” on November 28th after. The theses of the discussion participants:
Thomas Keck, Mayor of Reutlingen: “The inner cities can be saved, but not as we knew them. This is something that you first have to accept before you try to find a solution: things will never be the same again as they were before Corona. It won’t come back.”
Sophie Büchner: city planner: “Inner cities are subject to change and the question is how we as a society and urban society want to use these processes to get the inner cities functioning again.”
Ingo Hänel, shoe retailer with 13 branches: “It doesn’t work without retail. Retail will not disappear either. He is certainly subject to major changes, but we will be able to overcome them.”
Sabine Jakoby, former saleswoman at Galeria: “City centers have to change dramatically so that they are livable for the people who live there and attractive for those who want to shop there.”
From the perspective of the shoe trade, Ingo Hänel described that Christmas markets current source of frequency for his businesses: “Frequency is always good for retail, no matter how it is generated. Without the Christmas markets the cities would be more boring and dreary.”
Whether there is good or bad trade – keyword one-euro shops versus specialist shops? “I wouldn’t differentiate between them,” says Hänel. “But there are more desirable industries for a downtown area. That’s where it belongs owner-managed trade “This is because it is always more individual than the big chains.”
Online trading Hänel no longer operates; He is “deliberately offline because my product is not suitable for profitable e-commerce because out of ten shoes sold, seven come back.”
From one Consultation fee The shoe retailer is not in favor of people who have shoes explained to them in a specialist store and try them on in order to then possibly buy them cheaper on the Internet: “Good advice can also be convincing at the moment of advice and then the purchase is completed and the customer is satisfied .” He is familiar with “advice theft,” continues Hänel. “But it’s wrong to presume to tell the customer beforehand: He doesn’t buy anything anyway. He thinks it’s wrong.” It’s worth trying every time.
Hänel is critical of the increasing banishment of Cars from the city centers: “There are studies that show that well over 60% of our customers travel by car and want to continue to do so. In a functioning city center that calls itself healthy, you can try to limit traffic.” But many cities were ailing and then also kept drivers out of the city. “I object to the fact that this is the very first measure in many cities. They haven’t done their homework for thirty years. And the first thing that comes to the mind of local politicians is: the car has to go.” That is often the wrong step.
In an overall volatile situation, as a trader he is required to monitor his performance Locations to constantly analyze, says the shoe retailer from Römerstein. “We re-conclude rental agreements in certain cycles.” Each extension is always a new decision. Wherever there is vacancy left and right, one wonders how long one’s own business can continue to operate there. “We do our best everywhere, but we definitely need an environment that works. Textiles, good cafes, restaurants. If the quality of the stay is right, I am a satisfied person,” says Ingo Hänel.
