COVID-19 – Treiber für die Digitalisierung des Einzelhandels?: Eine Untersuchung in vier Mittelstädten

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed major challenges not only to society but also to business, including the retail sector in particular. Although online retailers benefited from lockdowns and the closure of local stores, brick-and-mortar retailers were cut off from their main source of income overnight. The latter has been undergoing structural change for decades and has recently had to face new challenges as a result of extensive social and economic digitalization. Our article deals with the question of the extent to which retailers felt compelled to undertake increased digitization as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdowns. We consider different online strategies, ranging from complete inactivity to a comprehensive online strategy (online shops, supported by social media activity). In order to visualize the development over the last years as well as over three COVID-19 lockdowns, the study presents a comparison of two survey dates (2017/2018 and 2021) based on four medium-sized towns in North Rhine-Westphalia (Baesweiler, Düren, Eschweiler, Heinsberg). It can be seen that the digitalization process is progressing in general, although the extent of digital activities is strongly dependent on the respective form of organization. In addition, differences can also be seen with regard to the size of the medium-sized towns.