Several retail chains are currently testing completely new purchasing concepts.
They could soon completely change the world of shopping in Germany.
Fulda / Munich - "I'd rather get started today than tomorrow," urges Thomas Stäb.
He is head of convenience stores at the Tegut supermarket chain and is eagerly waiting for a decision on his building applications, as he
explains
in the
world
.
Stäb wants to open new supermarkets.
Markets that are open around the clock and have no staff at all.
The retailer from Hesse already operates four of these branches: three in Fulda, one in a village in East Hesse.
The new store format is called “Teo”.
Ten to twelve of these digital self-service shops are due to open soon before expansion is pending.
“The goal is 200 to 300 locations in the coming years,” the Tegut manager announces to the
world
.
Edeka, Lidl and Tegut are planning a supermarket revolution: this is how tomorrow's shopping will work
This is how shopping at “Teo” works: Customers can use an EC card or QR code to access the 50 square meter shop and choose from around 950 products - around the clock, seven days a week. If you check in with an EC card, you have to scan your shopping cart at a terminal and pay. Anyone who uses the “Teo” app can scan individual items with their own smartphone directly on the shelf and then pay automatically using the payment data stored. Personnel are only on site in the morning to clean and fill the shelves.
According to “Teo” managing director Thomas Gutberlet, this is the “stationary answer to online shopping”.
In fact, with its digital self-service shops, Tegut is going on parade with the shipping giant Amazon, which is promoting autonomous shopping in the Anglo-Saxon region with its “Amazon Go” stores.
In Germany, Amazon is currently not represented with its offer.
However, that is only a matter of time.
No tills, no staff: In addition to Tegut, Edeka, Lidl and Kaufland are also positioning themselves
The German grocers do not want to leave Amazon the promising business field without a fight. In addition to Tegut, other industry giants are also experimenting with alternative concepts. The Schwarz Group, the parent company of Lidl and Kaufland, recently installed a “Shop Box” test shop on the educational campus of the dual university of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation in Heilbronn. Admission is controlled by a smartphone app, sensors record the purchase automatically and billing is carried out completely without a cash register or terminal via the payment service provider Klarna.
Germany's largest grocer, Edeka, has long since positioned itself with an automated shop.
In the “E 24/7” at the train station in the small town of Renningen in Baden-Württemberg, customers can choose from around 300 items from a machine or smartphone.
Robot (technology) collects the articles and brings them to an output tray.
Supermarket revolution: "The step to automated shops is obvious"
Such concepts are already common practice in other countries, especially in America and Asia. German consumers have been skeptical so far. But that is currently changing: “The Corona crisis is driving digitization forward for everyone to see and feel. The step towards automated shops is therefore an obvious one, ”says Ulrich Spaan, member of the management team at the retail research institute EHI der
Welt
and reports that there is a strong increase in consumer approval.
So will digital self-service shops soon replace the classic branches of Edeka, Lidl and Co.?
No - at least not yet, according to the Schwarz Group.
The new formats are initially purely research and development projects.
“The focus is not on whether some of these concepts will be ready for the market,” the company explains in a statement.
Edeka, Lidl and Kaufland: will traditional branches disappear soon?
Experts are also skeptical about changing the guard at traditional branches.
"Classic supermarkets and discounters will exist for an indefinite period of time," says Ulrich Binnebößel, expert for payment systems at the German trade association in the
world
.
Nevertheless, there are niches in which such markets make sense and have great potential - for example in particularly highly frequented locations or in the countryside.
List of rubric lists: © Victoria Jones / dpa