How can you keep a local supplier in town when customer frequency fluctuates wildly and staff is scarce? This question keeps Andreas Haider intensively occupied. The hybrid supermarkets promoted by the UniGroup in Traun are well received – by customers and also by traders.
With the UNIBox, a mini-supermarket without employees, Andreas Haider, the boss of the Traun-based supermarket chain UniGroup, believed he had found a solution to save local supplies in rural areas. However, success only occurred where there was still infrastructure with restaurants and banks in the area.
Maximum opening hours may be exhausted
A mix of traditional business and a self-service solution is now proving to be a good offer that is being accepted. “The employees are there in the morning, not in the afternoon – and the supermarket is still allowed to be open,” says Haider. The advantage of the hybrid system: The 72 hours that a store in Upper Austria is allowed to be open per week can also be fully utilized.
New cash register systems
New cash register systems were developed: ‘We designed them in such a way that they can be turned over in the afternoon and customers can use them.’ In the battle to maintain local supplies, the hybrid solution is perfect: ‘Because once someone is locked, they will no longer be open.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
