Friday December 24th 2021
Käthe Wohlfahrt after bankruptcy
The Christmas feeling “translate into digital”
A year ago – shortly before Christmas Eve – the traditional company Käthe Wohlfahrt had to file for bankruptcy. Absent tourists and lockdowns had brought the Christmas merchant’s business to a standstill. One year later, Takuma Wohlfahrt took stock of the third generation of entrepreneurs.
Käthe Wohlfahrt stands for German Christmas like no other company: The traditional company sells nutcrackers and Christmas decorations in markets and shops all over the world. But a year ago the family business was on the verge of collapse: During the pandemic, Christmas markets were canceled, tourists stopped coming to Germany, and sales collapsed by 80 percent in 2020. Shortly before Christmas Eve, Käthe Wohlfahrt went into protective shield proceedings.
A year later, it is time to take stock: the company remained in family hands. 20 out of 280 employees were laid off, 8 out of 22 shops had to close, and the range was streamlined. “The situation and the mood were very depressing, but after much deliberation it was definitely the right step,” says Takuma Wohlfahrt in the podcast “The Zero Hour”.
The grandson of the company founding couple Wilhelm and Käthe Wohlfahrt is currently responsible for marketing. Together with his siblings Kenta and Aska, he should have taken over the management of the company in 2020, but due to the pandemic, they had to change their plans. “Of course, we imagined it very differently,” says Wohlfahrt, but the crisis was also “a very instructive school”. In spite of the bankruptcy proceedings to keep calm in order to keep the business going, one learns “definitely not in normal life or in studies,” said Wohlfahrt. From 2024 he should take over the management.
The year 2021 was not easy for Christmas dealers either, but international business is almost back to pre-crisis levels. “The urge for normalcy and Christmas and cosiness is there, customers want to buy when they are allowed to,” says Wohlfahrt. The online business also generates sales and has growth potential. “But it will be a big task for us to translate this feeling, this highly emotional element, which you can easily experience wonderfully in the shops, into digital,” he explains. And in the end, Christmas will “also come for the next few years”.
Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour”:
- Whether you can buy a nutcracker with a mask from Käthe Wohlfahrt
- How Takuma Wohlfahrt will celebrate Christmas this year
- How the distribution of roles with its siblings works within the company
You can find all episodes directly at Audio Now, Apple or Spotify or via Google.