Traders in Saxony: will we survive?

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So far, there has been no more opening prospects than there has been any assistance other than short-time working allowance – and even that has so far been advanced by many retailers without getting it back.

Leonhardt has no employees, only his wife helps out. He has largely paid off his loans and the house in town belongs to him. But what has accumulated is not enough for retirement, he says.

Wood, glass and porcelain paint a museum picture in his shop, and now and then a rhinestone flashes out. The city center is in front of the shop window, and even now it’s not completely quiet behind it. Above the counter, a hanging clock ticks so quickly, as if it wanted to outdo the sonorous gongs on the grandfather clock. Leonhardt slides a drawer out of a dark-colored desk and runs his hand over the wood. For four days he cleaned and sanded, varnished and dried the table. “I don’t spend my days in despair with a beer bottle in front of the television, but rather with my vocation, restoring.”

The result of his work costs money. He insists a fraction of what you would pay for such pieces in Paris. And yet many budgets are likely to be overwhelmed, especially now that salaries are shrinking or missing. The table should cost 1,280 euros, the bar cabinet in the shop window, a unique designer item, 18,000 euros.

Compensation payments cannot be a solution

Corona has accelerated a trend that had already become apparent: While sales in stationary retail fell by up to 40 percent in December 2020, depending on the industry, compared to the previous year, online sales rose by almost a third. “The Homo Sapiens degenerates into the Homo Digital, who no longer deals with books and museums, but just sits in front of the screen,” says Leonhardt.

Despite all the civic politeness, Leonhardt makes his anger clear: “After the lockdown, a world collapses. This entails huge losses. Who should pay so many unemployed people? ”The trained restorer believes that compensation payments could not be a solution. “It will take generations to repay everything. I call for the lockdown to end. If no miracle happens, 2021 will be a year that will leave a deep turning point in the economic situation for everyone. The profiteers, Amazon and the like, are located elsewhere. “

Hendrik Dietrich tries to keep hope. In Dresden Neustadt he runs “Catapult, a shop for unusual gifts”. The 50-year-old’s situation is more sinister than that of his Görlitz colleague. The Neustadt, where drained pubs, health food store visitors and children with names like Ruben or Emma cavort, is popular – and that means expensive rents. In addition, Dietrich has not yet received anything back from the short-time work allowance. Will he survive the crisis? Dietrich shrugs his shoulders. He is too busy for sad thoughts. He scurries between boxes with “Corona Care Package” stickers.

Since last spring he has also been selling goods via an online shop. The care packages are doing well there. “It’s a bit like the Berlin Airlift,” he says happily, listing the variants: There is one with chips and a comb for the home office and one with cleaning rag shoes and dice drinking game for shared apartments, one with “Dr. East oral vaccination ”and“ long breath ”soap bubbles as protection against corona and a survival kit with head massager, epidemic quartet and chocolate UFOs, which are called“ contact lenses ”.

“Corona shit really fired up our online shop.” Many orders go to Dresden, some to Cologne, Munich, Austria, Belgium or Switzerland. “The absolute hit,” says Dietrich and dashes into another corner, “are our fortune cookies with sayings in Saxon. This is the bestseller, also financially. One costs 1.50 euros, which people quickly take with them. ”Dietrich and his companion produce items such as the biscuits and the GDR surprise bags with Schlager sweet bars and Badusan themselves, others find them at trade fairs. “We have to be faster than the big chains, that’s our market niche. They buy a lot more, can sell it cheaper. “

A great year as soon as the opening is pulled through

He meanders across the shop. There are gifts for children from embryos to high school graduates, for heterosexual and homosexual weddings, for men, women, jokes, intellectuals – everyone. Small boxes with 30-day challenges for more sustainability, veganism, better photos on Instagram or less materialism in life, newly published fairy tale books with heavy pages and a lot of painting, beer brewing sets.

“We have had a great summer,” says Dietrich. Sales grew by up to 30 percent, “sometimes we fell from all clouds. That was due to domestic tourism. They weren’t necessarily package travelers who only run to the Frauenkirche, but rather a lot of individual travelers who also take a look at Neustadt. That made up for the sales losses in spring. ”But then came winter. “Ten days of lockdown in January would be okay, ten days before Christmas could cost you a living.” It is precisely in the ten days before Christmas that it is decided whether the store will make a profit or loss over the year.

“Christmas is important in retail anyway, for us it is decisive for the war because everyone needs gifts for several people. If you haven’t found anything yet, you will definitely find something here. ”After all, there were almost 1,000 purchases online in December. In January, the “pickle month”, things look different. But people feel the need to celebrate again soon, to make themselves and others happy. That will help his shop, says Dietrich. “I am a basic optimist. I don’t want to give up the whining retailer. I think it will be a great year as soon as the opening is carried out. “

200,000 retail businesses affected

The prognosis of the industry association sounds gloomy. “Numerous business tasks are threatened if the companies do not obtain effective economic aid,” warns René Glaser, general manager of the trade association in Saxony. Reserves were used up, many went to their retirement provisions. “The impression is increasingly being felt that many political decision-makers have not really recognized the importance of the retail industry for the economy” – at both federal and state level. The bridging aid that has been announced must be practical and concrete.

Nationwide, according to Glaser, 200,000 retail companies are affected by the lockdown. “We are contacted almost every day by companies – large, medium-sized and small companies – who were economically sound before the crisis, did solid business and had good prospects, but are now about to end or have to close locations.”

Ute Rietzschel turned on the light in her shop that cloudy morning to take photos. “I’m not open. I don’t want to have anything to do with these right lateral thinkers, ”she says. “I do not fail to recognize that Corona is a big problem. But it can’t be to drive the economy to the wall like that. ”The 63-year-old runs a women’s boutique for large sizes in downtown Pirna. In April it will celebrate its 30th anniversary – maybe. “I would never have thought that I would experience something like this after two floods,” she says. “Even before Corona, it was difficult for us retailers. I don’t even have an online trade. Without regular customers I would be completely lost. ”Rietzschel shows photos of the goods in a Whatsapp group. Some regular customers take it.

The lockdown hits the textile industry particularly hard. Big online sellers benefit, unsold winter goods are piling up in small shops. “In normal sales, people come, see new colors, take a reduced and a new part with them.” It is incomprehensible that the restaurant and hotel industry, but not retailers, were promised help for the period from the beginning of the lockdown. “Of course, if everyone had followed the rules, it wouldn’t have been that bad. But what can we not do here that a Rossmann drugstore can? “

A thickly wrapped man pushes snow away from the Bautzen town hall. Around the corner, a glass door and three chairs block the way to the traditional jeweler Scholze, which owns shops in shopping centers in Bautzen, Görlitz and Dresden in addition to the branch in the city center. Only the shimmering rings protrude from the darkness inside the shop. Ivo Scholze sits at the table where he usually advises bridal couples. “It’s a catastrophe. But we are still optimistic about the new year. We motivate our employees in an internal chat group. ”The 40-year-old now also spends his days in the store. From 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. What a team used to share, he now does alone: ​​looking after the online shop, juggling numbers and bills, and answering calls.

Caravan tourism generates sales

Before Corona, the wedding season started in January. When will Scholze put on the first ring this year? “It wouldn’t do me any good to open right now. I’m not a baker, I’m a luxury good. Nobody needs me. I’m for those who have enough, something on top. It’s easy to get to work in the morning without a ring and is also dressed without a chain. We have a beautiful, but also a difficult industry. ”

Scholze experienced how quickly this can change after the first wave. “People stood in line to buy nice things. They couldn’t leave, so they had to spend the money in Germany. With caravan tourism, a whole new group is coming to Bautzen that has more time. “