More sales

Strong sign of life for bricks-and-mortar retail

The village and town centers in the Ländle are by no means dead - also because Vorarlbergers still prefer to shop locally.

(Bild: Copyright (c) Matthias Rhomberg http://facebook.com/rhomberg http:/www.rhomberg.cc)

Although more customers shopped online last year, the proportion of sales generated by bricks-and-mortar retailers increased again.

The Institute for the Austrian Economy (iföw) recently presented a new study on the shopping behavior of Vorarlberg residents. The results came as a surprise even to the authors. It is almost "paradoxical" that although exactly 71% of Vorarlberg residents shopped online in 2023 - a new record - they spent significantly less money doing so. The proportion of retail spending in online stores fell from 12.2 percent (2022, 430 million euros) to 11 percent (400 million euros) in 2023. Important to know: six out of ten euros spent online ended up in international online stores and platforms.

Conversely, this also means that around 30 million euros in sales flowed from the internet to bricks-and-mortar retailers. "You can see how much influence even small changes in purchasing behavior have on our local economy," explains Carina Pollhammer, Chairwoman of the Retail Division at the Vorarlberg Chamber of Commerce.

Service and advice beat knock-down prices
Regional retailers - both brick-and-mortar and online - can score points above all with service, advice, inspiration and the joy of shopping. The lively Vorarlberg city centers also offer a great shopping experience, which is complemented by a wide range of products in the retail parks on the outskirts.

The people of Vorarlberg are obviously very conscious of their purchases and therefore also like to shop regionally. I hope that this trend will continue in the future.

Carina Pollhammer, Obfrau der Sparte Handel in der Wirtschaftskammer

"The people of Vorarlberg are therefore very conscious and therefore also like to shop regionally," is how the head of the division Pollhammer interprets the "Vorarlberg paradox" in the study. She naturally hopes that this is a long-term trend and not just a one-off phenomenon. If this is the case, it would be more than just remarkable: the western Austrians would then be defying a global trend - and that would indeed be a unique selling point.