The great chain of German supermarket Kaufland has decided for its online supermarket service in Germany, after just one year of launching this online supermarket sales initiative to the public. These issues are about the costs of the operation and the little potential it has to grow in the future.
This is what IGD Retail Analysis wrote a few weeks ago. The news was following this news and it became known, in November, that the launch in the city of Hamburg would no longer happen. The service is now only offered in the city of Berlin, but Kaufland decided to stop the online supermarket service altogether.
It was not a good time for the big supermarket chain. The German supermarket has been planning to open its first physical store in the Netherlands, but permission for this was refused by the Deventer consulate. "We are mainly talking about a large supermarket, which is expected to outperform the other supermarkets in Deventer due to a large wave of sales," a person from the municipality contributed to the local newspaper De Stenor.
Launch in Holland it can't happen and now the supermarket is shutting down and stopping all its online sales services. IGD Retail Analysis said that this move reflects the difficulty retailers face when it comes to discount, since this is one of the main points that are needed to be able to have a successful and viable online supermarket in countries with a lot of demand as is Germany.
In November, Lidl announced that they will be moving away from the online supermarket for now, until the time is right. We feel sorry for Kaufland, but we hope that this new year 2018 will bring him a lot of success.