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Redeem vouchers and exchange gifts immediately after the holidays? You can get rid of that immediately this year. Stores will be closed after Christmas until January 18. There are exceptions for supermarkets, pharmacies and drugstores.
Furthermore, body hugging service providers (such as hairdressers, cosmetic studios, podiatrists or masseurs) have to say goodbye to the lockdown once again, also in mid-January 2021. When they reopen, they are required to take a test corona or an FFP2 at least once a week. -Mask to wear at work. In retail, this rule only applies to those employees who have direct contact with the customer.
Even if the closing doesn’t come until after Christmas Eve, much of the Christmas business is with it. “We are talking about three of the ten best shopping days of the year. For these to fail is like a catastrophe, ”says commercial president Rainer Trefelik. After all, those who redeem and redeem vouchers generate frequency and therefore high sales. Particularly bitter from a retailers point of view: according to polls, Austrians are giving away a lot of cash this year. Trefelik: “You can find out who will benefit if stores stay closed: online retailers again.”
Rainer Will, managing director of the trade association, also suggests the same. According to him, the potential loss of income per week of confinement is around 900 million euros. The official closing of the trade from December 26 to January 18 will result in an additional loss of sales of up to three billion euros (any recovery effect is not taken into account), estimates the trade association. The industry would like the government to replace sales throughout the shutdown, but a fixed-cost subsidy is planned starting January 1.
In Will’s opinion, the “free trials” planned to enter commercial premises from January 18 would be another “Amazon support program” that redirects purchasing power to online platforms. In November and December, sales in the non-food trade were already 15 percent below the level of the previous year. With another lockdown, more than 60,000 jobs in the Austrian non-food trade will be in grave danger, Will estimates.
