Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19.12.2013, No. 295, p. 15, author: Christine Scharrenbroch
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The shop on Cologne's Friesenstraße stands out: old floorboards, tall wooden shelves, an antique bureau, stucco ornament on the ceiling and a chandelier. With his label John Crocket, owner Thomas Schmitz focuses on classic British fashion. The cashmere jumpers come from Scotland, as does the tweed for the jackets, which are sewn in Turkey to his own designs. Most of the clothes, however, are no longer sold in the shop but through the online shop launched in 1997.
“We have many customers in Hamburg, in southern Germany and in the east,” says the 55-year-old Schmitz. Orders also come in from Austria and Switzerland, he says. While studying in Ireland, the economist discovered his liking for the British style of dress. He sold his first jumpers to friends from the boot of his car. In 1987 Schmitz opened his shop in Cologne, and branches in Bonn and Düsseldorf followed later.
As the British pound grew more expensive, he had to close the Düsseldorf shop in 1997, and then, in the economic and financial crisis of 2008, the Bonn branch as well. Instead, Schmitz put a strong emphasis on online retail.
Three quarters of his turnover, which runs into the single-digit millions, now comes from the internet. “Online is our future,” says Schmitz. For now, there is no thought of opening branches again alongside the Cologne shop. “The rent and staff costs are simply too high.”
... “Smaller retailers also have to show their products online,” says Kai Hudetz, managing director of the Institut für Handelsforschung (IFH) in Cologne. Given the strong competition from pure online retailers, he says, it is admittedly difficult for them to find a niche that still promises really big sales. ... For customer loyalty alone, however, an online presence is necessary, says Hudetz. As is well known, many customers want to inform themselves online before buying in a shop. “If a retailer is not active on the internet with an online shop, things look bad,” is how Gerrit Heinemann, who heads the eWeb Research Center at Hochschule Niederrhein, sums it up.
Brick-and-mortar retail, he says, is letting the pure internet retailers “take the bread out of its mouth”. As expected, Heinemann sees businesses in the segments most affected by online competition as under heavy pressure: he estimates the online share at up to 40 per cent for printed books, almost 30 per cent for electronics and a quarter each for toys and shoes.
According to the IFH, just under 30 per cent of all retailers in Germany now run their own web shop. ... Internet expert Heinemann also urges smaller retailers to link their offline and online business. “Both channels must be linked intelligently; there is no longer a dividing line between them.” The British, he says, are further ahead in this respect: “There, the customer stands in the shop with a smartphone and calls up the product information.”
