Würmtal Card with a stumbling start

Created: 03/02/2022, 17:25

By: Martin Schullerus

Happy about the first prize: Winner Krista Kepler with (from left) Dieter Deninger (Trolley Maker), Sabine Strack (business developer Gräfelfing), Bärbel Zeller (business developer Planegg) and Susanne Trenkle (bookstore Phantásia).

© Dagmar Rutt

Three months after the introduction of the Würmtal Card, which replaces the Würmtal voucher in retail, the communities of Gräfelfing and Planegg have drawn a positive balance.

In the business world, however, many reject the digital Würmtal Card.

Würmtal –

It was a positive appointment with beaming faces: On Tuesday, Krista Kepler accepted her first prize as the winner of the “Würmtal Card Competition” in Planegg – worth 600 euros.

"I just think the idea of ​​communities sticking together and strengthening themselves from within is great," said Kepler enthusiastically.

"We started the competition to push the Würmtal Card," explained Bärbel Zeller, business promoter in Planegg.

All new cardholders who had registered by the end of January could take part in the game.

There were over 500 winners.

At the Graefelfing municipal council meeting at the end of February, business promoter Sabine Strack had already given figures for the first two months (December and January) since the introduction of the Würmtal Card: Vouchers worth 30,000 euros had been purchased with it - a "remarkable" volume, according to Strack said, even if the month of the year with the highest sales was there.

2200 cards are now active or registered and 1100 transactions have been made.

The possibility of purchasing vouchers online generates an "additional volume" to the abolished Würmtal voucher, which can no longer be spent but can still be redeemed.

However, the Würmtal Card needs "repeatedly advertising among citizens and companies" in order to establish it more broadly, Strack admits.

Mayor Peter Köstler praised:

Anyone who goes to the homepage of the Würmtal-Card, however, will also find other numbers: the site lists just 39 active partners, i.e. tradesmen - including the two operating municipalities themselves or companies such as the disposal company Wittmann, where the use the Würmtal-Card does not open up at first glance.

There are also eleven other companies that are marked "soon".

When asked by Merkur, Sabine Strack explains that there are “talks and contracts” – and unsolved technical problems with the cash register connection.

Because many of the existing cash registers would need additional terminals in order to be able to use the Würmtal Card.

And they are difficult to obtain.

Andreas Haindl from the Intersport shop in Planegg can tell you a thing or two about that.

"We want to take part, but nothing works," he says, frustrated.

"First the terminals didn't work, now we're supposed to get new ones, but they aren't delivered.

We're waiting for a solution.” Haindl is already mourning the loss of the Würmtal voucher, which has been redeemed many times in his shop.

Haindl: “Nothing against digital, but then it has to work.

To this day we are not connected.

It is an extremely unfavorable start for the Würmtal Card.”

An insider of the Würmtal business world, who does not want to be named, expresses fundamental criticism of the system.

"Here, with the Würmtal voucher, an established, excellently functioning system was destroyed," he says in the Merkur interview.

The vouchers would have made it easier for the older generation in particular to take part.

"A grandmother could buy a voucher for 500 euros for each of her five grandchildren for Christmas, which benefited the Würmtal economy." A year ago, the Wolfart Clinic bought vouchers for all employees worth 10,000 euros for Christmas - not now more.

"That's money and purchasing power that's gone," says the businessman.

In addition, the Würmtal Card has the disadvantage that it is only supported by the municipalities of Gräfelfing and Planegg.

Sabine Strack counters:

The Würmtal bakery Sickinger is refraining from introducing the Würmtal Card in its branches for the time being.

"Introduction would be so technically complex for us that the costs would not be covered by a long shot," says HR Manager Adam Blumenfelder.

The Würmtal voucher ran reliably in the bakery.

With the digital successor, a connection to the EC terminal at Sickinger is not possible, and the direct connection to the cash register requires a lot of programming effort.

Blumenfelder: "If it weren't for the technical problems, we would take part."

Many small shops like "Käse Sturm" also shy away from the technical effort.

Ute Sturm: "I've talked to many colleagues, it's just too complicated for us." Paying in, paying out, booking, new devices, training employees - that's too much.

With the Würmtal voucher, she made sales of 2,500 euros a year.

Ute Sturm: “I thought the customers would run into the store with the new card and want to pay with it.

Not one came yet.

A lot just falls away.”