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Braunschweig / Meppen (dpa / lni) - From the point of view of trade experts, bonus campaigns and city vouchers can help to stimulate pre-Christmas business in the corona crisis.
Actions with a view to Black Friday and the Advent season could be an important "stimulus for stationary trade in the city centers", said the general manager of the Lower Saxony-Bremen trade association, Mark Alexander Krack.
Despite the open stores, retail also suffers from the current partial lockdown.
According to data from the trade association, cities are currently still seeing between 40 and 50 percent fewer potential buyers.
According to Krack, sales are 30 to 40 percent lower, especially in the inner city area.
Bonus promotions like in Meppen or city vouchers like in Braunschweig could keep sales in your own city.
For Krack, they are an efficient tool to send a clear message that «we're doing something».
In Meppen, the City Marketing Association (WiM) and the Association for Business and Advertising in Meppen (VWW) are giving away a shopping bonus of 10 percent when buying a Meppen shopping voucher.
"With this campaign we want to give the retail industry a hand," said Ansgar Limbeck, managing director of the city marketing association, shortly before the start of the campaign, for which a budget of 20,000 euros had been available since mid-November.
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In Braunschweig, too, city vouchers have been offered for around three weeks to support local actors.
Of these, more than 2000 copies with a total value of over 75,000 euros have been sold, said a spokeswoman for city marketing in an initial balance sheet.
These include some large orders from companies that want to please their employees, for example.
Despite the Corona crisis, the German Retail Association (HDE) recently expected record sales in German retail on the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount days.
Overall, consumers could spend around 3.7 billion euros on bargain hunting at the end of November, the HDE forecast last week.
That would be 18 percent more than in the previous year.
Black Friday takes place on November 27th this year, Cyber Monday three days later on November 30th
From the point of view of the Lower Saxony-Bremen trade association, retailers in the city centers have long understood that this is not about a fight against online business.
“Both must be considered together,” said managing director Krack.
The city centers should also implement more good ideas for the cities and municipal associations.
You would have to represent diversity again and be better, faster and more creative than pure online trading, said spokesman Thorsten Bullerdiek.