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In her children's clothing store in Düsseldorf, Sandra Derveaux offers well-known brands and the products of smaller manufacturers.

They can present themselves in their own boxes.

In just 55 square meters there are handmade clothing, mugs with names, jackets in the “January sale” at a discount.

“Our concept is based on high quality, not high price,” says Derveaux.

Derveaux has been running her business since 2010, and a few days ago she joined the “Buy Locally” campaign, which is committed to the survival of shops in the city centers.

“We have to do something against the Amazons of this world,” says the business economist, who only stands in her shop for around two hours a day due to the current lockdown.

Even before the corona pandemic, the retail sector was weakening, now it is in an existential crisis.

Many shops in inner city locations are likely to be threatened by the extended lockdown.

According to the German Trade Association (HDE), there is a risk of up to 50,000 bankruptcies due to the booming online trade and high shop rents.

Textile and shoe retailers in particular complain of a threatening situation.

Against this background, the “Online, offline, it doesn't matter - buy locally” campaign was launched before Christmas.

The initiator is Miguel Müllenbach, head of the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof department store group based in Essen.

A press release states that around two million contacts have already been made, mainly in social networks.

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Müllenbach's partner is Frank Schuffelen, spokesman for the ANWR retail cooperation, which represents more than 5000 companies in the shoe, sports and leather goods industries across Europe with 10,000 specialist shops and is also behind the online sales portal shoes.de.

"Buy locally" is intended to offer retailers of all types and sizes a platform on which they can "act with concentrated strength" in order to save their business and thus also the lively inner cities, says Schuffelen.

While the “Buy locally” campaign is slowly picking up speed, Till Breckner is in the starting blocks in Düsseldorf's old town and wants to help the local retail sector with another platform.

The 43-year-old management consultant and gallery owner started the search engine Shoptimist.com with partners.

With 420 affiliated retailers, it will initially offer an alternative to Amazon, Alibaba and other pure online retailers in the state capital and from February also in the Ruhr area.

“These companies don't pay taxes in Germany, and most of the goods come from the Far East,” says Breckner, who studied economics in Dortmund.

He has been working on the idea with two business partners since the first lockdown in spring 2020, and he has invested a lot.

“We have just started adding a further 800 dealers who will be activated for the greater Essen area from February 7th.

Our goal is to be able to find 50 million products on our website throughout Germany in the summer. "

At Shoptimist.com, the dealers involved remain self-sufficient and do not have to commit themselves.

However, an existing online shop is required to participate.

Initially, the whole thing should be free of charge for the participants, later Breckner would like to charge a “fair participation fee”.

In the case of “purchase locally”, the initiators ask for a fee, which, however, depends on the “willingness and economic strength of the dealer”, as it is called there.

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While Breckner's Shoptimist platform has the whole of Germany in its sights, there are already a number of local initiatives in NRW that want to support local retailers.

Online marketplaces are operated by the IT service provider Atalanda in Wuppertal, Bochum, Monheim am Rhein and Attendorn.

According to Atalanda boss Roman Heimbold, the number of visitors almost tripled across all platforms between 2019 and 2020, and sales even quintupled.

Whether the platform is successful in a city, however, depends very much on the commitment of the so-called carers, who are supposed to promote the digitization of the participants on site, as well as on the motivation of the participants.

The retail expert Gerrit Heinemann, however, gives most local platforms little chance.

Establishing an online marketplace is one of the most difficult and expensive endeavors in the start-up scene, says the professor at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences.

An expected annual turnover must first be invested before money can be earned.

Heinemann therefore criticizes the fact that public funds are still flowing into such local marketplaces.

"All of the hundred initiatives together do not even generate as much sales as a well-functioning Aldi branch." When he asked about the status in Wuppertal, the operators reported that two parcels were sent per week.

The Cologne initiative “Veedelsretter” also shows that only a few customers look around on local portals.

Katharina Partyka, founder of the “Kiss the Inuit” label with shops in Cologne and Bonn, reports that in the first lockdown she still sold a lot on the Veedelsretter website.

In the end, however, interest has flattened out there.

"We are currently promoting our winter goods primarily on Facebook and Instagram," says Partyka.

And now she has joined the “Local Purchase” initiative to draw attention to her ecological and fairly produced fashion.

Your customers can pick up the goods in stores, Partyka has given up the mail order business after a two-year test phase.

"That is very time-consuming and expensive, the bottom line is that there is not enough left with our articles."

"Show yourself everywhere"

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Retail expert Heinemann encourages small retailers like Katharina Partyka to rely on social media for marketing.

"You should present your phone number wherever you can show yourself, be available day and night, use all social channels, be easy to find on Google and deliver it yourself." And if customers had currently fought their way into the store, you have to try to increase sales further, for example through discounts.

The Düsseldorf-based Sandra Derveaux is now using social media even more than usual to keep her customers up to date.

She now also wants to incorporate the new purchase-local logo there.

“I deliberately don't have an online shop,” says the retailer.

Because with the many returns that are common in textile shipping, you can hardly cope as a small business.

Sandra Derveaux prefers to be available to her regular customers at the shop door by making an appointment.

"And I also deliver my children's clothing to the region myself."

This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG.

We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.

Source: Welt am Sonntag