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Berlin (dpa) - The hard lockdown in the middle of December spoils the Christmas business for retailers.
According to a forecast by the German Retail Association (HDE), retailers will be missing more than six billion euros in the tills compared to the previous year due to the store closings.
"The otherwise strong sales phase at the end of the year will be a fiasco for many retailers," said HDE managing director Stefan Genth in Berlin.
Overall, the industry association expects sales of just under 98 billion euros in November and December, seven percent less than in the previous year.
It is true that online retail will increase its sales by almost a third to just under 20 billion euros.
However, this could not make up for the losses in stationary retail, where sales fell by 14 percent, said Genth.
At the beginning of November, the industry association had expected sales of almost 104 billion euros for the Christmas business.
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Overall, according to the HDE, the Corona year 2020 has clearly split retail into pandemic winners and corona losers.
While online retail and grocery chains were doing good business, the non-grocery retailers affected by the closings had to surrender a fifth of their sales, according to the HDE.
It is expected to see revenue losses of 36 billion euros this year, said Genth.
The industry could not survive this without government aid.
"In the fashion trade in particular, many companies are on the verge of bankruptcy," warned the HDE managing director.
He therefore called for the retail trade to be treated equally with the catering trade when balancing sales for December and a better adjustment of the bridging aid to the needs of the trade.
Otherwise there may be no prospects for up to 50,000 businesses with 250,000 employees.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201215-99-699901 / 2
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