Things have been going downhill for Tchibo since the successful year 2021.
Doubts about the company's business model are growing - with far-reaching consequences.
Hamburg - Stationary retailers are under pressure in Germany.
Online retailers like Amazon have been stealing customers away from them for years, and the corona pandemic has finished many of them.
The list of victims is getting longer and longer, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, Peek & Cloppenburg, Reno and Ahlers are just a few of the well-known names.
Tchibo in crisis: After a successful year 2021, the crash occurs
There are no signs of bankruptcy at the coffee roaster Tchibo, but the signs are bad.
Things still looked very good in 2021.
According to the parent company Maxingvest, sales increased slightly to 3.26 billion euros, the operating result (EBIT) almost doubled to 176 million euros.
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An expert expects Tchibo to close branches
© Weingartner-Foto/imago
But the forecast for 2022 was already bleak, with Tchibo expecting "sales below the previous year with a significantly declining EBIT".
According to a report by the
world,
inventories are a problem.
In 2021, apparently too large quantities of goods were procured that cannot now be sold.
Tchibo in crisis: employees have to forego an annual salary increase
The employees in the 550 branches should now pay for the misery.
"Unfortunately, the company figures do not allow an adjustment of salaries this year," the newspaper quoted from a circular email from management to employees.
This is justified by the fact that 2022 was "financially the worst year in the almost 75-year history of the company".
The letter did not go down well with the employees because they are apparently paid less than their colleagues at Aldi or Lidl.
The absence of the usual annual salary increase widens this gap.
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Tchibo in crisis: there are doubts about the business model
The working conditions also seem to be deteriorating, according to
Welt
, employees complain about the conditions on the intranet.
Many employees have resigned, the work intensification has increased extremely.
As a company, you cannot permanently demand 150 percent performance, and that for a de facto decreasing salary, it is said, for example.
In addition, there are increasing doubts about Tchibo's business model, a mixture of coffee and promotional goods.
“Tchibo is a well-functioning discontinued model.
In the end, only the coffee business will survive,” says Gerrit Heinemann, Professor of Business Administration, Management and Trade at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Mönchengladbach.
He expects branch closures, for example when leases expire.
List of rubrics: © Weingartner-Foto/imago