Enlarge image
Galeria Kaufhof branch in Cologne
Photo: Christoph Hardt / imago images / Future Image
Series of branch closings and a government loan - the corona crisis has also hit Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof hard.
Now the CEO of the ailing department store group is announcing a future concept.
“We will strategically reposition ourselves with our Galeria 2.0 concept at the end of October,” said CEO Miguel Müllenbach to the “Handelsblatt”.
The locations are then to be divided into three categories: Weltstadthaus, regional magnet and local forum.
Corresponding pilot branches already exist in Frankfurt, Kassel and Kleve.
Up to 60 of the 131 houses are to be completely rebuilt, the rest at least partially.
More service instead of sales area
For example, the group wants to reduce their own sales area for branches that are supposed to act as regional magnets and instead create space for regional products and service areas such as municipal citizen services or parcel counters.
"We want to become the networked heart of the city center - with concepts that are precisely tailored to the local location," said Müllenbach.
The aim is to offer customers services such as appointment bookings via an app.
Müllenbach also announced a new online presence for the entire group, which is already running under the name galeria.de.
The department store group could appear with this brand name in the future, indicated Müllenbach.
"It's time you saw from the brand that we are now a company," he said.
Some branches are still called Kaufhof, others Karstadt.
Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is the second largest department store group in Europe and the market leader in Germany.
The company received a government loan of 460 million euros - also because the department stores are an indispensable crowd puller in many pedestrian zones.
The company is currently negotiating a second loan with the state.
Overall, the group lost at least 1.8 billion euros in sales due to the lockdown, said Müllenbach.
mmq / Reuters
