A horrific scenario not so many years, if development continues in Silkeborg and the rest of the country:
November-the wind tugs at the many empty buildings along the once vibrant main or pedestrian in a Danish provincial town. Christmas decorations there is not much of, and only in a few of the once so colorful butiksbygninger is now apartments or other residential – the rest is gaping empty, and there is not a man on the street.
There is dametøjs and modebutikken Bundgaards on Søndergade in the centre of Silkeborg, thankfully, not yet been achieved, but the holder, Käthe Bundgaard, blinking with warning bells and see a closing of his 12-year-old store for only a few months out in the future, if not indkøbskulturen change quickly and significantly.
Käthe Bundgaard know that online shopping is probably here to stay, but it doesn’t make her frustrations less of a trend towards butikslukninger and depopulated streets of the Danish cities. Photo: Anders Brohus
– We’ve had a tremendous decline of the sales in our store. Now we see christmas, but if there is a positive trend from now and in the coming months, so I will throw in the towel, says the 49-year-old shopkeeper to Ekstra Bladet.
Käthe Bundgaard personifies so, what many other shop owners around the country are struggling with fewer and fewer customers and the resulting fear of having to close for their livelihood. Her facebook-call from last Wednesday is, however, already been shown more than 62.000 times, and she hopes to the last that the curve breaks.
Owner of the fashion and dametøjsbutikken Bundgaards in the centre of Silkeborg, Käthe Bundgaard, fears that the increasing trend for customers to buy their goods through the network will take the life of her 12-year-old business. Photo: Anders Brohus
According to figures from the Danish business is more than every tenth store closed nationwide for the last 11 years, and the trend looks set to continue.
– You just need to look around here in Silkeborg, denmark. There has been more quiet and less people in the city. Our vendors and suppliers, says that such is, unfortunately, in the whole country.
– of course I can only speak for myself, but it does so hurt both the economy and the joy of working with people. It is in all ways a sad development, but I can not continue to pay the rent and salaries to our total of six employees, says Käthe Bundgaard, if the store has lost over a half a million dollars in revenue in recent years.
The personal meeting between the clerk and customer, as here in the picture is a cornerstone in the Käthe Bundgaards approach to his profession. Photo: Anders Brohus
The downward curve will realise that at the on-site Bundgaards amounted to 44.000 crowns on the first Saturday in november last year. This year was the number dropped to 26,000 crowns.
Käthe Bundgaard as most others in her place, that development is almost impossible to combat, when foreign webshops that Boozt and Zalando can sell exactly the same goods 10-20 percent cheaper.
– We are even starting to sell our goods through the network, but it does not change that I frustreres over the development, saying tøjsælgeren, who has worked in various Silkeborg stores since 1988.
Chairman of the Trade Silkeborg, Frank Borch-Olsen, believes that Käthe Bundgaards opinions are an expression of how pressed several shop owners are.
– She is on her knees and says bluntly that this is the last shot in the bøssen. It is not a new phenomenon, but it is a sad development, as we see also in omegnsbyer as Forests and Them, says frontfiguren of the association of traders in Silkeborg, denmark.
Frank Borch-Olsen think the more butiksfællesskaber can be a way forward.
– There are good experiences with, that, for example, clothing and bogbutikker has joined together, he points out and mentions the ongoing renovation of the pedestrian system in the city as an initiative that can counteract the negative development.
Käthe Bundgaard know that you can’t legislate nethandlen out on a siding.
– But I hope that others than myself will speak up and react against a development that creates ghost towns and the less human contact, she says.
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Photo: Anders Brohus
– It is a vexed development with the closing of shops and the increasing online shopping. Personally I like to be able to try on the clothes and the make and feel of it, before I buy. I’ve never thought about, that the same goods are often cheaper on the net.
– It is also pleasant to go around in a city and go to the café, if there are stores with live people around.
Photo: Anders Brohus
– I is for both in-and because I prefer the personal contact with a sales clerk in a store, when I buy more expensive goods such as shoes and winter jacket. In turn can I find to buy a little cheaper goods such as t-shirts and other via the web.
– the Development with the many butikslukninger makes me worried on the communities behalf. No one cares well about the empty shops and streets without people and life.
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Town fights
In the town of Ikast are the shop owners, tenants, cityforening and the municipality come together to fight the closing of shops in a corporation under the name Ikon Centre. With an initial capital of slightly over a million dollars were so far found the money for that project could exist in the three years since it was launched in the spring of 2019.
the Company’s first major investment was the recruitment of a development manager Julia Thaarup Johansen, and she can after her first half year on the field recognize that it is an uphill battle to keep butikslivet.
– It requires innovation. In the past, created the centre butikslivet more or less by itself, because the people of the far higher degree was at the post office, the pharmacy or something third. Now the stores even create life and traffic by luring people in other ways, says Julia Thaarup Johansen.
She has in his half year in office experienced two butikslukninger and three temporary openings of a gallery, an exhibition and a so-called pop up store for Halloween. At the same time, has two existing stores had grown bigger and has moved to larger premises.
– We hope also to be able to unveil two new stores in the beginning of the new year, says Julia Thaarup Johansen.
