“Despair in retail growing”, headlines Onlinehaendler-news.de given the extended lockdown. Many retailers are developing or expanding online divisions, and after some hesitation Bavaria too is now allowing Click & Collect – although a digital tax may one day be waiting. Only the trend towards e-commerce remains clear at the moment, as figures from Switzerland and Great Britain once again confirm. Some of the topics of today’s morning brief.
///// NATIONAL TRADE
HDE speaks out against digital tax from, city federation for an online submission
The German Trade Association (HDE) sees “no need for the introduction of a digital tax”. After all, many stationary retailers are now also online, and “there is a risk that a digital tax could also be at their expense”, so the association. Instead, he calls for ensuring that providers from the Far East pay the correct taxes. At the same time, the German Association of Towns and Municipalities beats a billion dollar “inner city and local core fund” and says: “We think it is right to feed this fund with additional funds from a new levy to be created for the large online retailers.”
Bavaria allows Click & Collect
With the onset of lockdown, the Bavarian government also prohibited the collection of ordered goods (Click & Collect). As part of the lockdown extension, this will probably be canceled, reports Channelpartner.de and quotes Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger: “This is perhaps the last straw for many retailers, especially for smaller retailers, and it is certainly a salvation for many that they do not have to go into bankruptcy if the goods can be picked up there.” Click & Collect is prohibited in, for example, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony and Thuringia, and allowed in Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein.
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TRADE INTERNATIONALSwitzerland: Coop supermarkets grew by 14 percent in stationary stores and 40 percent online
Some of the first annual balances for 2020 come from Switzerland – and the picture is no surprise: The Swiss grocer Coop reports total sales of CHF 30.2 billion for the past calendar year, a currency-adjusted minus of 0.2 percent. The supermarkets, however, grew by 14.4 percent to CHF 12.0 billion, and online retailing by 35.2 percent to CHF 1.2 billion, including Coop.ch with growth of 42.6 percent. Online competitor Farmy, which specializes in food directly from the producer, almost tripled sales in 2020, albeit at a significantly lower level: from 9.6 million to 26 million francs. reports Carpathia.
Brits double their online quota when buying groceries – out of necessity instead of conviction
The online share of grocery sales in British supermarkets doubled to 12.5 percent in the four weeks up to December 26, 2020 (previous year: 6.7 percent). Internetretailing.net quotes Nielsen figures, with many details on product groups and receipts in the article. The online boost came primarily from necessity and less from the love of the click: According to Ubanet, more than a third of online shoppers see online shopping as “more of an inconvenience than a blessing”. The reasons given are unsuitable delivery slots and replacement items instead of the items ordered.
Pandemic and e-commerce as reasons: New York lost around 1,000 branch stores in 2020
And this is the dark side of the current online boom using the example of the city of New York: More than 1,000 branch stores were closed there in the course of 2020. The number of branches fell from 7,948 in November 2019 to 6,891 in November 2020 and thus by 13.3 percent, meldet das Center for an Urban Future in seiner Studie “State of the Chains, 2020”. This is “by far the largest annual decline in chain stores since our surveys began 13 years ago.” The main reason is the coronavirus pandemic; In the clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry, cosmetics and pet supplies sectors, the institute names “the growing competition from e-commerce” as the reason. Additionally: The US department store chain Macy’s plans to close around 45 stores in 2021.
Amazon provides billions for employee apartments
Amazon understands contradicting news: While working conditions in the logistics centers are a recurring topic, the company has announced that it will provide two billion US dollars “to create or maintain 20,000 affordable apartments”. That should run through loans and grants, messages several Media. Sounds good, but only applies to the regions around the company’s headquarters in Arlington, Puget Sound and Nashville, all of which are in the USA. Counter program: Four Amazon deliverers talk about the risks of their job.
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///// TRENDS & TECH
This is how the “Cart” works in Whatsapp
The fact that Whatsapp opens up the sale of goods with the “Cart” function has already been an issue several times. The “Business Insider” shows how this works step by step. “Companies do not have to register. As long as an article catalog is created that customers can search through in Whatsapp Business, Whatsapp does the rest,” writes the portal. (The large pictures in the article are not advertising, but illustrative screenshots.)Asendia replaces “Goods” with “E-PAQ”
The Swiss company Asendia, according to its own information “leader in providing e-commerce package solutions for online retailers selling internationally“, rearranged its range at the turn of the year: All previous” Goods “services have been switched to “E-PAQ”. Four services “that differ from one another in various aspects tailored to the needs of the customer – delivery speed, price, format, weight and additional features” – are now in the program.
Panasonic sends delivery robots to Japanese streets
In the morning briefing, there was no news about autonomous delivery vehicles for a long time, so a look at Japan: Panasonic is testing the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town (Kanagawa Prefecture) is currently a four-wheeled robot with Manga charm that drives 4 km / h autonomously, but is remotely monitored by a human. According to Panasonic, the pandemic is also driving this project, because the demand for supplies exceeds capacities. The test is part of a nationwide robo-car project sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Economic Affairs.
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