The best present for the festival? A loan!

Ninth part of the series: How the Hamburg entrepreneur Janine Werth steers her business through the crisis.

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Hamburg. Standing in the shop until 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve, checking the cash register, cleaning up, maybe writing a few more emails. Exactly when it is getting dark, others are lighting the Christmas tree candles and are nibbling the first cookies, getting on the subway to go home. This is usually how stressful the last few hours look before Janine Werth Christmas is coming. “Most of the time there are customers who are looking for last-minute gifts,” she says Retailer. This year everything is different.

Her shop, Dear Friends, in downtown Hamburg has been closed for nine days. Last week, Werth hung a note on the door telling customers about the Corona-Lockdown informed. “I never expected that the retail trade would be closed completely before the last important Advent Saturday. And for the second time in a year, ”says the entrepreneur. For them this is the worst case, the worst case that could have happened.

Janine Werth express existential worries

Instead of starting the holidays in a festive mood, they express existential worries. And she can’t do anything. Two years ago, Janine Werth opened her shop for sustainable fashion and natural cosmetics on the Großer Burstah, a lifelong dream. Now the founder has to watch as the good start slips away under her hands. First the five-week closing time in the spring, then the reopening with mask requirement and distance rules, new restrictions in November, now the second lockdown. Janine Werth has been fighting for the survival of her business for ten months.

The evening paper has accompanied the Hamburg entrepreneur since the beginning of the pandemic in March on her way through the severe crisis. The Christmas business this year does not bring in what it should have brought in either. This is the case with almost all brick-and-mortar retailers, even Wert Freunde recorded massive losses. Only the last two days of sale before the forced closure on December 16th were really good. Goods were sold over the counter in the concept store for 15,000 euros.

Lots of ideas for the run-up to Christmas

The Saturday before, when the lockdown was already emerging, had sales like in pre-Corona times. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I close December with a minus of 50 percent compared to 2019,” says the 42-year-old, who has borrowed half a million euros for her own shop. She had come up with a lot for the run-up to Christmas. An advent calendar, for example, with a discount on a new favorite product every day.

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When the news of the new lockdown came, the entrepreneur opened three doors at once. After that none more. In the days that followed, she and her employees were still in the shop, processing the last orders and preparing the inventory. “We have already sold the autumn and winter collections quite well,” says Janine Werth. Cosmetics were also in demand, especially soaps are often given away in times of corona. But many warm jackets are still hanging on the clothes rails, and wool sweaters are piled up on the shelves.

Six days a week in the store

Can she still sell them? It is not certain. “Not only are the last days of the Christmas business missing, but also the traditionally high-turnover days up to the turn of the year,” says Janine Werth. A few weeks ago, she first thought about what it would be like if she gave up. Now dim light shimmers through the high glass panes of the closed shop onto the empty street, the shop windows are festively decorated. A picture like frozen. Werth has given herself and her team a real break for the first time. Will not be available until after the New Year. The year cost her a lot of strength.

The idea for the series:

• Tens of thousands of small businesses Gastronomy companies, self-employed people, small businesses and artists in Hamburg were affected by the shutdown as a result of the corona virus, which severely restricted life in the city for weeks. Even if much has been relaxed, the effects are still present today and will continue for a long time.
• How many companies struggle for existence survive in the end, nobody can say at the moment. The evening paper has been accompanying entrepreneur Janine Werth and her team since March as an example for many others on their way through what is possibly the worst crisis since the Second World War. The series appears in loose succession.

The trained beautician was often in the store six days a week and with her spirited, gripping manner ensured a stable atmosphere in the team. On the weekends she was mostly on the social media for Valuables friends and, with her partner Stefan Schmid, who supports her with finances, rolled over the business figures, made plans and kept coming up with new ideas on how to steer her shop through the crisis can. Instead of a real vacation, the couple spent the few free days in July in a tent on Amrum. To save money. Janine Werth is exhausted. Admitting this is not easy for her. They have had pain in their arms for weeks. That is one of the reasons why Christmas was an emotional lifeline for the super woman.

“That was a great effort”

“We cannot repeat what we did in the spring,” says Werth. From one day to the next, she had shifted her stationary retail business to the digital one. For five weeks, she and her six employees packed and dispatched orders received by email or telephone every day. Skin analyzes were carried out using a tablet. “That was a great effort.” She brought in almost a third of the planned turnover. Motto: We can do it! After the reopening at the end of April, customers came back, and sales figures rose slowly but steadily. In September they were even back on target with double-digit growth compared to the previous year. It looked like dear friends

Mastering the crisis better than many other traders. But the current sales could not make up for the losses from the closing time. When the autumn goods arrived, at least with a volume of 130,000 euros, things got really tight for the first time. With the closure of the cosmetic studios in early November, an important source of income was lost. That was when Janine Werth sounded the alarm on Instagram. “If we can’t find a solution, the lights could go out in three weeks,” she said. Behind the imbalance is a liquidity gap of several 10,000 euros.

Unsatisfactory conversation with the house bank

A conversation with the house bank was extremely unsatisfactory. The application to suspend repayment of the loan, which will start at the beginning of 2021, has been under review for over four weeks. A reduction in the expensive overdraft facility interest of eleven percent was also out of the question. Instead, the financial institution increased the fees for providing the overdraft facility. But giving up is not an option after all. Werth and her partner looked for a consultant. At the beginning of December, they decided to submit a loan application for the Corona Recovery Fund in the amount of 130,000 euros to the guarantee bank, which is already involved in the start-up with a loan, in order to make ends meet and develop in the next few weeks of closure to work on a digital strategy. The funding model envisages that the Hamburg Investment and Development Bank will bring financial resources into Werth’s shop in return with a silent participation.

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A contribution from funds from the city and the federal government as a rescue – the entrepreneur, who has also worked at Amazon and the drugstore chain Müller, never dreamed of that. If the lockdown was a screeching halt in spring, this time it’s a sad routine. “We immediately checked all options for reducing costs,” says the business owner. She sent the team on short-time – this time completely. Another rental deferral from January has been discussed and the delivery of the first spring goods has been postponed. Werth also hopes for bridging aid, after all it could be 7,000 euros to compensate for the closing time until January 10th.

“A drop in the ocean compared to the failure. And significantly less than in spring. But at least. ”Now she wants to celebrate Christmas first. And even got some Christmas presents, books in particular. And new cups for your employees. Also a signal that things will continue. Her mother is visiting and has already promised that she will do the cooking. Janine Werth wants to use the holidays to think. “It can’t go on like this year in 2021, financially and emotionally always on the edge of a volcano,” she says. She received her best Christmas present a few days before the party – the credit approval for 130,000 euros from the Corona Recovery Fund.

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