Customers, sweaters and T-shirts stacked over their arms, push past the clothes rails;

Women, half-naked in brassieres, in front of a mirror in the store because all the changing rooms are occupied: last Saturday was not only a day of sales in the Tulu fashion boutique on Berger Straße, which is reminiscent of old times.

"Last week was good, but today it's like before Corona," rejoiced a saleswoman.

Petra Kirchhoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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This was also the impression on the Zeil, where visitors had free access to the department stores for the first time on a Saturday since the introduction of the 2-G control and did not have to queue.

"Saturday was great," says Andrea Poul, center manager at the My Zeil shopping center.

However, the Saturdays before, when controls still had to be carried out, were also "very strong" - in contrast to the days during the week, which, according to Poul, are still below the level of 2019.

Felix Pfuller, spokesman for the Frankfurt dealers, confirms this: "The atmosphere is much better on Saturdays than on any other day."

“We are moving towards normality”

According to Poul, this is due to general corona fatigue.

“People finally want to get out and experience something.

Claudia Benz, who has been running the boutique Female Fashion in Sachsenhausen for 13 years and opened a branch on Berger Straße two and a half years ago, sees it that way too.

"Saturday was good." However, like most operators of smaller shops that one speaks to, she attributes this less to the elimination of the 2G control.

She was able to take care of them in everyday life without any problems.

"I didn't have a slump in sales as a result." Rather: The days that are now getting friendlier and longer again, the prospect of relaxation in the pandemic and in the hospitals - "all this is good and is a reason to breathe a sigh of relief".

Not only on the Zeil, but also in the surrounding area things went better at the weekend.

Sales at the Ganz department store in Bensheim last Saturday were 3 to 4 percent slightly above the level of two years ago, when the virus was already out in the world but had not yet really arrived in this country.

"We are very satisfied.

The cities are full again.

We are moving towards normality," says department store boss Tatjana Steinbrenner, who is also Vice President of the Hesse Trade Association.

Her colleague and association president Jochen Ruths speaks of a "proper Saturday".

One shouldn't forget: "It's February" - a month that was said to be no less sluggish than August when he was still in training.

Ruths has a fashion department store in Friedberg.

Get rid of the goods quickly

However, the business people have also done something to get things going again.

Hearts made of yeast dough were distributed at Ruth's on Saturday, and Ganz in Bensheim gave a 14 percent Valentine's discount.

At Tulu an der Berger, each item from the winter collection was only half the price.

The large department stores on the Zeil were in the process of outbidding each other with "hot sale" and "final sale" percentages.

In the Galeria department stores (formerly Kaufhof and Karstadt) there was an additional 30 percent on already reduced items long before last Saturday, and so you could buy a sweatshirt that normally cost EUR 99.95 (reduced EUR 69.99) for 48.99 euros to take home.

Sales campaigns such as "Five reduced items and 20 percent on top" ensured that customers with well-filled shopping baskets waited in front of the cash registers at Peek & Cloppenburg.

A visitor who treated herself to a potato pancake at the producer's market at the Konstablerwache after the shopping tour on Saturday could hardly believe her bargain purchase: she had four pieces for 80 euros in her pocket.

These are discounts that, according to trade observers, “also have a bearing on panic”.

The spring goods are already on sale, so the fashion houses now have to get rid of their winter goods.

The pressure is enormous, they say.

"And in a situation like this, liquidity comes before profitability," says department store boss Steinbrenner, especially since many brick-and-mortar retailers expanded their online offerings during the Corona period and are now also under massive pressure online.

"The money is here"

Fashion retailer Benz also survived Corona with her two boutiques for two years because, as she explains, she invested a high five-digit amount from her private assets.

Now she is "cautiously optimistic" about the year ahead.

For the next winter she only bought carefully.

In their estimation, the crisis in stationary retail will only become noticeable in the course of the year with a slight delay.

"Many businesses, big and small, will not survive."

Association President Ruths, like many of his colleagues, is hoping for stabilizing catch-up effects.

"The money is there," he says.

Many would have saved during the Corona period and now want to buy something.

"Now we just have to lure customers and convince them with great products."