A disaster for business

Dachau / Karlsfeld - In the Dachau district, the number of cases is increasing again.

If the incidence remains above 200, stricter measures will be initiated again.

For shops it is no longer Click & Meet, but Click & Collect.

Customers are then no longer allowed to shop in the shop, but only by picking them up at the shop door.

For the Schuh Schmid shoe and fashion store in Karlsfeld, this means one thing above all: very few customers.

"We only have 40 customers a day on average," complains Rikarda Theil, deputy branch manager in Karlsfeld.

Otherwise between 150 and 200 people came to her shop every day.

The shoe store has already had to take action: employees were sent on short-time work, the opening times were changed.

“People want to shop with us and are already at our door, but as soon as they hear that they have to submit a negative test, they turn around again,” reports Theil and sighs.

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Therese Mogel is a passionate florist.

At the moment, however, she is concerned about her business and the future of her flower shop.

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Even if the deputy branch manager describes the measures as "nonsense", she is still happy to be able to open it at all. At least "a little something" would come in this way. For Schuh Schmid that is “still better than nothing”. Because another hard lockdown would probably break the store's neck for a long time. “That would be a slap in the face for us,” said Theil.

If the regulation comes into force on Friday, hardware stores, flower shops, gardeners and bookshops will also be affected. For the Obi DIY store in Dachau, this would have considerable adverse effects. As we know from last year, the Click & Collect offer is used extensively, but for the employees of the hardware store it is associated with significantly more physical and time expenditure. After all, the employees would first have to find the goods they want in the hardware store.

Branch manager Tobias Lück speaks of a "catastrophe". He expects a loss of 50 to 60 percent. “These are dramatic sales that we are losing as a result,” right now, in the most important season for the construction market. “The garden center is our most important driver,” explains Lück. The adverse effects of the stricter Corona rules would be serious, because blooming pot products are only exhibited in the garden center for two weeks, after which they have to be written off: an immensely high economic damage for the hardware store.

In addition to the large DIY megastores with garden centers, the small shops are also hit hard, such as the flower shop in Dachau Flower Magic. Therese Mogel and her daughter have been running the business on Mittermayerstraße for 22 years. But Mogel gradually loses hope. “Actually, I'm a positive person, but I'm slowly becoming negative.” Since Corona, she has been more or less alone in her shop, sales are in the basement. Since Mogel does not want to check her customers for corona test results, she offers her goods for collection. Mogel is actually a passionate florist, but everything is very tedious at the moment. Since the customers are no longer allowed to help themselves, the florist no longer displays her goods decoratively. This means that an important point that makes sales has disappeared.

Mogel is also looking forward to this year's Mother's Day with skepticism.

It is actually the busiest day of the year, but according to Mogel, that could be very difficult this year.

"I hope that we will still be around until the end of the year," says Mogel.

However, if things continue as before, the chances of this would be 50 to 50.

Verena Möckl