Kik is hitting the brakes and closing hundreds of stores this year. The German non-food discounter plans to reduce its European network by a net total of approximately 225 locations by the end of 2026. Around 135 stores in Germany will be closed, with the remainder located abroad.
Packed too close
In Europe, Kik plans 300 closures and 75 openings by the end of this year. As a result, the number of stores will drop by approximately 225 to just over 4,000 locations; in Germany, around 135 stores will close, leaving about 2,200. Some stores have already closed, while others will follow in the coming months.
“We’re streamlining our portfolio for profitability,” says CEO and CFO Christian Kümmel in the German newspaper Handelsblatt. “The formula ‘we open five new stores and have five times as many customers’ didn’t work out 100%.”
In some cases, stores were less than a kilometer apart. “We expanded too densely. We’re scaling that back.” According to the CEO, the remaining stores are profitable.
The company has not released a list of the stores to be closed. Many employees have not yet been informed. “We will continue to employ the staff from the affected stores at other locations or find a solution in another way,” says Kümmel. Layoffs are not planned. Kik has approximately 32,000 employees, 19,000 of whom are in Germany.
