Nowadays, organic food has found a place on the shelves of all retail chains and discounters, and this development received a boost last year. Here, too, customers are increasingly ordering online and having the products brought to their doorstep in vegetable or fruit boxes. The resulting lack of sales in the inner cities is causing ever greater worry lines. Now three mayors have written in a letter calling for the cities to be opened up quickly. A fast pace is also the motto of the young delivery service Stash in Zurich. Many online shoppers should also be quick, either when they buy on a mobile device or at home on the couch, but convenience is also one of the wishes.
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Hot boxes from the organic market
The growing enthusiasm for organic food was noticeable on the one hand in the production and sales figures last year, but on the other hand the number of farms and shops with organic products is also growing, according to the new Industry record of the top organic association of the federal organic food industry. Total sales grew by 22% to 14.99 billion euros, the number of companies now stands at 16,281 organic producers, an increase of 26% in recent years. In addition to the pure online trade, the winners include the operators of fruit and vegetable boxes, who deliver the goods directly to their customers’ homes after ordering online. Even after the first lockdown in spring 2020, providers in online and direct marketing had to significantly expand their capacities due to the boom in demand, and the result was a nearly doubling of sales.
Mayors demand opening of the cities
The calls for shops to be opened and cities to be re-occupied has been a constant tone since the lockdown began in mid-December and has become louder and louder in recent weeks. The decisive day is eagerly awaited, now three Lord Mayors from Baden-Württemberg are pushing again, it says Fashion United. Boris Palmer (Greens) from Tübingen, Richard Arnold (CDU) from Schwäbisch Gmünd and Matthias Klopfer (SPD) from Schorndorf demand in a letter to Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) a restart of the retail trade as soon as possible . The measures proposed by them include rapid test stations at the entrances to city centers, but also higher VAT for online trading, hence the Finance Minister as a co-addressee. With the strain of online trade, the guests should be lured back to the cities.
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Logistics solutions for seasonal fluctuations in retail
With the growing online trade, the logistical challenges for warehouses increase at the same time: above-average orders, increasing returns and the pressure to keep productivity constant even with low staffing requirements. With Technologies like voice and AMR picking and return processes can be accelerated considerably and productivity increased significantly.
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TRADE INTERNATIONAL
Shopping comes home like lightning
The delivery time of the ordered products shouldn’t take ten minutes longer. That is the daring promise of the Zurich start-up Stash, a pilot project of the Swiss Startup Factory, reports the Trade newspaper. The young entrepreneurs built this on a small warehouse with only around 500 products, all of which are relatively small and easy to transport, it said. In the first five days after the start of operations, delivery times were between five and eight minutes, all in keeping with the Swiss sense of punctuality. In other European cities, the sense of pace is a bit weaker, here delivery times are between 30 and 60 minutes.
Zalando shares to the mother’s shareholders
The shares of the online fashion retailer Zalando are to be given to the shareholders of the Swedish parent company Kinnevik. The decision on this is planned for the Kinnevik general meeting at the end of April, reports the Textilwirtschaft. Kinnevik is the largest Zalando shareholder with 21%. The corona crisis has led to a surge in sales for Zalando, the number of partners has risen to around 3,000 and now, through the division of the shares, inclusion in the DAX is possible. At the current exchange rate, this means an enterprise value of around 5.5 billion euros.
China is the number one online nation
Around the globe, more and more consumers are buying on computers, tablets or smartphones, but the Chinese have now exceeded a remarkable limit. For the first time in a country, more online purchases are made within a year than in a store Fast Company. The marketing research company Emarketer forecasts a share of online purchases of 52.1% by the end of 2021, an increase of 7.3 percentage points. Analysts see social media trading and the pandemic as the two determining factors.
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– Convenience matters
The expansion of additional services is at the top of the wish list for many customers when buying online. After a new one study of the IoT and mobile management expert SOTI, which was carried out in a total of eight countries, the claims have shifted in the course of the corona crisis. Only six percent of customers in Germany prefer to go to a shop instead of sitting comfortably on the couch. A big sticking point are the delivery time and the returns, 48% are not satisfied here. 63% do not want to search for their orders and have to wait a long time in telephone loops, but want to know at all times where their ordered product is currently on the way, 55% would like to be able to repeat the order with just one click. Convenience not only plays a major role when shopping, the majority (83%) want the products delivered directly to their home. Only 37% want to go to the store and pick up their purchases themselves. Shopping by app is en vogue
The boost to online retailing has also left its mark on the field of purchase apps. Cell phone users click more and more, according to a report by Internet Retailing the fields “Checkout” or “Pay” on their mobile devices. Worldwide, the usage figures for shopping apps rose by 45% last year, driven by social media and live streaming. There were big jumps in Indonesia (85%) and Mexico (65%). In the week after November 8, the number of hours that people around the world spent in such apps was around 2.5 billion. Social networks were one of the biggest winners, as they have recently expanded their programs with purchasing functions.– – –
