“Open stores now, then it will be too late,” say the prime ministers of leading domestic retail companies, who joined the Retail Association in June. According to them, the declining numbers of people infected are a good enough reason for the closed stores to open this Friday at the latest.
“The closing of stores in the pre-Christmas season is a liquidation for traders exhausted by losses from the spring, most of us have seasonal goods that cannot be sold later,” representatives of the Retail Association appeal in an open letter to the Prime Minister.
“Most retail companies have to earn enough money during November and December to be able to subsidize the year-round operation of their stores in other months,” says Václav Hrbek, chairman of the association and founder of the Alpine Pro clothing brand.
“Specifically for us, November, when we present winter collections at full prices, is an above-average market and a profitable key month.”
The last two months of the year, it usually gets up to 27 percent of the 350 million they earn in retail each year. “With regard to the range, the winter season is crucial for us, we finance all development from it,” adds Hrbek.
The owner of the Wormelen Group toy empire, Petr Homolka, sees it in a similar way. From October to December, his company is said to earn the same amount of money as in the remaining nine months of the year. “Due to the current closure, we are missing 200 million in cash flow,” he says gloomily.
Retailers argue that they are prepared to comply with strict hygiene measures, including a limited number of customers per sales area. After all, all open stores in the Czech Republic must follow this from Wednesday.
Only one customer may shop at a time on every 15 square meters of sales space. At least until the epidemiological situation improves a little.
And while stores that remain open tend to oppose such a measure, retailers are willing to comply. If it would allow them to serve at least some customers.
“With such measures, transmission is minimal. In the past seven months, we have not recorded any case or suspicion that the seller was infected by the customer or vice versa, “says Roman Kocourek, CEO of Electro World, which in the last two months of the year also accounts for less than a third of full-year sales.
Some can, others can’t. It’s not fair
The boy tries to reflect the accusation of irresponsibility in advance. “We certainly do not want to restart the growth of the epidemic with the current partial disintegration. We want to learn to work differently in this new age, but we don’t want to end, “he says.
At the same time, the association warns the government that the current government restrictions create unequal conditions in retail. “It’s not fair that customers can continue to buy clothes, school or household goods or electronics in hypermarkets. A large number of people gather there every day, which, thanks to the loosening of government measures, could spread to smaller specialized stores, “says Hrbek.
According to him, customers could choose which store to choose for their purchases during the coronavirus pandemic.
Although retailers are growing massively through online channels, they say they cannot make up for the outage in brick-and-mortar stores. “Buying toys is impulsive, even at Christmas, the e-shop makes us a maximum of 10 percent of turnover,” says Homolka of the Wormelen Group, which includes Sparky’s and Bambule toy stores – the entire group spins 1.5 billion a year.
It is similar elsewhere. Although online sales quadrupled in Alpine Pro in November, Václav Hrbek does not believe that they could cover losses from closed stores.
In addition, Czech retailers fear that thanks to subsidies in Germany and Austria – where the state plans to cover up to three-quarters of lost sales – a number of weakened domestic companies could be taken over by foreign investors next year.
“On the contrary, sales revenues would bring money to the state budget and help reduce the use of aid under the COVID and Antivirus programs,” adds Hrbek.
The association currently unites over 100 Czech and foreign companies, among which, in addition to the companies mentioned, include Crocodille, Fruitisimo, Gant, Neoluxor, Sklizeno and Grand Optical. Together they employ tens of thousands of people and their turnovers are in the tens of billions of crowns.
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