The German Retail Association (HDE) predicts that there will be a significant number of store closures again this year.
It is estimated that around 5,000 stores will close their doors in 2024, the trade association said on Wednesday. If these forecasts are confirmed, a total of 46,000 stores would have been closed from 2020 to the end of 2024.
“This is bad news for retail, but especially for city centers. For many people, the main reason for visiting a city center is shopping,” says HDE Managing Director Stefan Genth. “If businesses disappear, the entire city center suffers.”
Genth emphasizes that immediate measures are required and that the seriousness of the situation has already been fundamentally recognized. It is now time to take action. He emphasizes that all parties involved from retail, municipalities, gastronomy and culture must work together on site. Only through joint action in many places can the extinction of entire inner cities be avoided. However, the retail sector could not solve the challenges alone, because inner city development is a “matter for the boss” and the responsibilities lie in different federal ministries, at the state level and in the municipalities, according to the statement.
“We need a central contact point for coordinating the funding programs and sensible implementation of short, medium and long-term measures,” says Genth. “The retail sector, in collaboration with the leading municipal associations, has already laid an initial foundation for this by collecting nationwide best practice examples in order to make good, tried-and-tested solutions visible and to scale them more quickly.”