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This year, the Christmas business has collapsed: the Franz Carl Weber toy chain alone was left with 1.5 million unsold products, says CEO Roger Bühler in the “NZZ am Sonntag”. The hole in the cash register is correspondingly large: expect a loss of sales of 2.4 million francs due to Corona’s measures. “What happened in December is extreme,” says Bühler of the newspaper.
According to initial estimates, the chicory fashion chain is also 20 percent below previous year’s sales in the otherwise strong month of December. Other chain stores felt the same. Overall, the 2020 Christmas business is five to 10 percent below that of 2019, estimates Martin Brown, a finance professor at the University of St. Gallen. This despite the fact that online shopping was booming.
Too much bought before Christmas
Offering discounts in December was out of the question for most retailers. In Corona’s already bad year, they wanted to sell at regular prices for as long as possible to get the full margin. But because they’re still sitting on full beds, they can’t help it anymore. The reason: many stores bought too many products before Christmas, and now they are sitting.
Therefore, according to the “NZZ am Sonntag”, in January there will be a discount battle in stores that have to get rid of the products. They are also moving products from the Aargau and Solothurn branches, where the stores are closed, to other cantons. This is likely to have consequences: the sell-off will generate more publicity in cities than epidemiologists would like. (pbe)
