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Thomas Stäb is eagerly waiting for mail from the office.
“We have submitted several building applications,” reports the head of convenience stores at the Tegut supermarket chain.
Now it depends on the responsible officials whether Stäb has to be patient for weeks or months.
“I'd rather get started today than tomorrow,” urges the manager, whose zeal relates to the new Tegut store format “Teo”.
This means small supermarkets without staff or cash registers.
Tegut himself speaks of the digital self-service shop.
The retailer from Hesse now has four such shops on the network: three in Fulda, one of which is on the premises of the company headquarters, and one in the 1,500-soul village of Rasdorf in East Hesse, not far from the border with Thuringia.
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Another ten to twelve should follow soon, especially in Fulda, before it goes into the masses, especially in the Rhine-Main area.
"The goal is 200 to 300 locations in the coming years," announced Stäb in an interview with WELT.
Teo: Offer is limited to 950 products
Tegut is getting serious and, above all, speeding up on the subject of “unmanned stores”.
At least that's what the industry calls this type of business, which gets by without any staff in everyday sales.
"We are reacting to the changed consumption, living and working conditions of the people", says the company that belongs to the Swiss Migros Cooperative.
Everyone can do their shopping flexibly whenever it suits them - including at night and on weekends.
And that is exactly what is apparently particularly popular.
“Sunday is the strongest day,” reports Stäb about the experiences of the first five months.
“The top seller is cream.” On the other hand, during the week, demand is greatest between 5pm and midnight.
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The selection is limited to the most popular ranges: Teo has around 950 products on a sales area of 50 square meters.
For comparison: a classic discounter usually has 2,000 to 3,500 items.
“The store is a complementary offer,” says sales expert Stäb.
It is not about replacing other supermarkets or saving staff.
Customers can choose to have access via an EC card or a QR code, which the appropriate Teo app generates immediately before making a purchase.
If you check in with an EC card, you have to scan your shopping cart at a terminal and pay for it.
Those who use the app, on the other hand, scan the individual items with their own smartphone directly on the shelf and then pay with the stored payment data.
“It's the fastest way to shop in a German supermarket,” says Stäb.
The most popular products in the range include fruit and vegetables, bread and dairy products, but also chips and cold drinks or snacks and ready-made meals for immediate consumption.
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It is always refilled in the morning.
Tegut employees only come to the branches then and to clean.
Nevertheless, there have been hardly any thefts so far.
However, there are also four cameras hanging in the shop, which make it difficult for thieves.
With the new concept, Tegut mail order company Amazon is in the parade.
With its “Amazon Go” format, the US giant is considered a pioneer in autonomous shopping.
These shops, crammed with sensors and camera technology, have so far only existed in the Anglo-Saxon region.
It is only a matter of time before Amazon Go is also launched in Germany.
But the local grocers don't want to wait for that.
They would rather go on the offensive and position themselves than wait motionless for new competition.
And not just Tegut.
“Little has happened for a long time.
But now the topic is really picking up speed, ”says Ulrich Spaan, member of the management team at the retail research institute EHI in Cologne.
In fact, other large retailers have recently launched pilot projects.
The Schwarz Group, for example, the parent company of Lidl and Kaufland.
“Shop Box” is the name of a recently launched test shop on the educational campus of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation's dual university in Heilbronn.
In the small shop there are classic shelves with around 250 everyday items, selected and put together by the students of the university and thus tailored to this target group.
Sensors record customers' purchases, and entry is controlled by a smartphone app.
Consumers, on the other hand, do not have to check out, either at a till or at a terminal.
Instead, the billing takes place automatically when you leave the shop, handled by the payment service provider Klarna, as it is called.
Initially, only students and employees of the higher education institutions have access.
You can also choose from a second concept: the so-called "Collect Box".
There, items that customers have ordered via a terminal or in advance via the app are stored in a twelve-hour window in output compartments.
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Both formats are initially pure research and development projects, as the Schwarz Group emphasizes.
“The focus is not on whether individual of these concepts will be ready for the market,” it says in a statement.
And a rollout in the retail divisions is also not planned.
So there won't be any contactless Kaufland or Lidl stores in the near future.
In any case, the parent company attaches great importance to remaining brand-neutral during the tests.
The organization with goods management and Co. is therefore also with the subsidiary Schwarz Restaurantbetriebe and not with Lidl or Kaufland.
Edeka is different.
Germany's largest grocery retailer deliberately uses its own name for the automated shop "E 24/7" at the train station in the small town of Renningen in Baden-Württemberg.
Project partners there are Edeka Südwest, Deutsche Bahn and the Stuttgart technology start-up Smark.
The automated mini-supermarket carries around 300 items that are ordered and paid for at a machine or by smartphone and then placed in an output compartment by a system with robot technology.
The trading company Bünting is also going in a similar direction with its “Combi 24/7” store in Oldenburg.
But it's not just supermarkets that rely on autonomous shopping.
The screw and tool manufacturer Würth now also has a corresponding shop in the Bavarian town of Vöhringen, right next to the A7 motorway.
Craftsmen and the self-employed can meet their needs there around the clock.
They scan the shopping cart themselves; any necessary instructions come from a computer voice.
And the chances are good that such concepts will establish themselves.
“The Corona crisis is driving digitization forward for everyone to see and feel.
The step towards automated shops is therefore an obvious one, "says EHI expert Spaan and reports that there is a strong increase in consumer approval.
Even a year ago, the Germans in particular were regarded as being tech-muffled and not keen to experiment, paying cash anytime, anywhere.
Now the tide is apparently turning.
After all, even the smallest amounts are now settled with a card at the bakery.
And the self-checkout terminals in traditional supermarkets are no longer a foreign object.
“The dynamism is great,” reports Spaan.
"The shopping world in Germany is becoming even more diverse."
The cash-free supermarket as a village shop
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Experts, however, do not want to know anything about a changing of the guard.
“Classic supermarkets and discounters will exist for an indefinite period of time,” says Ulrich Binnebößel, the payment system expert at the German Retail Association (HDE).
Nevertheless, there are niches in which such autonomous supermarkets make sense and have great potential.
“On the one hand, in particularly highly frequented locations, where long opening times are also necessary, for example at train stations or university campuses,” says Binnebößel.
“And on the other hand in the country.
There they can function as a village shop and bring the trade back to regions that have to get by without local supplies. "
Gerrit Heinemann sees it similarly.
"This will not be mass business," says the professor for business administration, management and trade at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences.
“In the niche, however, such shops make sense.
And that's where they will establish themselves. "
The scientist suspects another calculation behind the current activism.
"The dealers are thus presenting themselves as future innovators." And that is important in order to bring skilled workers into the industry.
“It turns you into an employer brand,” explains Heinemann.
And this is the only way to get a chance to get IT experts and technicians.
Otherwise, they all go to Amazon, Zalando and Co. whose recruiting is running in easily over 100 countries.