Status: 10/26/2021 5:27 p.m.
The traditional names Karstadt and Kaufhof are history. In the future, only the name Galeria will be emblazoned on the remaining large department stores. This is part of a realignment that the group is driving forward.
Germany’s last large department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof wants to reinvent itself. The names Karstadt and Kaufhof will disappear for good in the course of this realignment. In future, the Essen-based group plans to use its 131 department stores only under the name Galeria. “We want to become the networked heart of the city center,” said Galeria boss Miguel Müllenbach of the dpa news agency.
To this end, the group wants to change the outdated branches in the coming years and align them with the future. “With our expensive inner-city locations, we cannot be the price leader,” said Müllenbach. Instead, the manager wants to offer customers a “special shopping experience with selected products and a high quality of stay”. The department stores should “become places of wellbeing where people like to spend their free time – shopping, but also use services or enjoy gastronomy and culture”.
600 million euros investment
Galeria plans to invest a total of 600 million euros in the modernization. With 400 million euros of this, branches are to be converted, up to 60 houses completely, the rest at least partially. Money should also flow into the online shop, IT and logistics.
Galeria has already converted three department stores in Frankfurt am Main, Kassel and Kleve in the Lower Rhine region into pilot branches of various sizes, which customers can take a close look at from Wednesday.
Galeria also wants to score more on the Internet. “This year we will generate sales of over 200 million euros online and we want to quadruple that soon,” explained Müllenbach. For comparison: the online giant Amazon had sales of almost 30 billion US dollars in Germany last year.