An unusual step in an unusual year? No! A strong foundation with the same values and aims forms a basis for the journey together. umdasch has acquired 55 percent of the Turkish company Madosan with immediate effect.  

Maik Drewitz – Shop Consult Director of the Lifestyle Division of umdasch The Store Makers – gives insights into his first 100 days together with umdasch Digital Retail at one location: in 47057 Duisburg, Mülheimer Straße 72-74.

Strict Covid restrictions were once again imposed on the retail trade in Germany, Austria and many other European countries. umdasch offers intelligent solutions for all industries and public areas, which enable contactless disinfection as well as automatic customer counting and access management on a permanent basis.

On 1.10.2020 Globetrotter opened its new flagship store in Schloßstraße 20 in Berlin-Steglitz. With concept, planning, shopfitting and digital touchpoints, the Store Makers of umdasch developed the 4,000 square meter outdoor experience center as general contractor together with the Globetrotter team. The result was a "more than just a reinvention" of a successful brand as a spectacular shopping experience. Globetrotter implemented a completely new flagship store concept at its Berlin location. The diverse range of outdoor sports is presented in a pointed manner on four floors.  In between, the visitor travels through both established and new highlights of the urban jungle: a repair workshop, the new Innovation Lab as an exhibition and work area including the presentation of innovative brands, exciting test stations, a travel practice for consultations and vaccinations, lovingly staged corner stores and a café in harmony with nature. Visitors will also find the perfect combination of stationary and online retailing in the new flagship store as a holistically well thought-out customer experience.

Stop-and-go instead of a continuous stream of customers and separate niches instead of market places? What effects on store design has Covid-19? We asked the experts at umdasch. The designers Julia Mitteregger, Maik Drewitz and Peter Prisching provided the answers to our questions.

SES Spar European Shopping Centers, the market leader for shopping centres in Austria, opened the trend-setting ALEJA-Center in Ljubljana as a multi-functional shopping and leisure hot spot at the end of May 2020. The iconic building is a further architectural highlight in the magnificent cultural capital, Ljubljana, thereby creating a new rendezvous for the city’s inhabitants. The characteristic design features continue into the public areas of the Food Court within the centre; the specially crafted furnishings were supplied by umdasch.

Subject to the approval of the anti-trust authorities, which is still pending, the Store Makers at umdasch, Austria, will be acquiring a majority share in the Turkish shopfitting specialist Madosan in Bursa, a large city some two hours’ drive south of Istanbul. The present owners, Vedat Saygin and his wife Sevgi, will remain on board as minority shareholders.

With their move to the new location in Duisburg, the digital experts at umdasch from Düsseldorf and the umdasch Store Makers team from Oberhausen will form a creative innovation hub for integral digital and analogue store concepts from a single source.

Sustainability: the dictate of the moment or no longer in keeping with the times? We asked Michaela Drage, Engineering Director umdasch The Store Makers, about its relevance for the retail sector.

Has the time finally come for retailer to move into exclusively online shops? Or would it be better to incorporate digital elements into the store? Bernd Albl, Managing Director umdasch Digital Retail, reports in this interview on digital trends and which investments at the POS will make sense now and in the future.