For our research, we conducted research in these ten major cities: Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Erfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Dresden and Essen. In each city we looked at the opening times of five branches of the discounter chains Aldi, Lidl, Penny, Netto and the supermarket chains Rewe, Edeka, Real and Tegut.
The first surprise came at the opening hours in the morning: It was striking that Rewe in Erfurt is the only supermarket chain that has branches that open at six in the morning. The other markets, on the other hand, don’t open their doors until seven or eight o’clock – although they may open earlier, look at the store opening laws – more on that below.
And Rewe and its competitor Real have yet another special feature: they are the only chains that are open until midnight in many large cities, for example in Berlin, Stuttgart, Cologne and sometimes also in Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Essen. Aldi, which often ends at 9 p.m., is at the bottom in a few branches until 10 p.m.
In this comparison, consumers from Bavaria are the shortest. Because in this Catholic federal state (and in Saarland) there are strict laws: Every shop has to close at 8:00 p.m. – with the exception of special permits, for example around train stations. And this gives them the lowest number of hours of opening hours in the entire test field.
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