Bückware — stooping goods. In the GDR, the word meant goods that were scarce locally and could be had only by exchange or through personal connections between seller and customer. They were sold only on request or to acquaintances. The name comes from bending down, literally or figuratively, to fetch goods kept under the counter.
retail
Trust Capital
A supermarket cashier, known in the media as Emmely, was dismissed without notice because she had redeemed deposit vouchers worth 1.30 euros that did not belong to her. She had worked for the company since April 1977. On 10 June 2010 the Federal Labor Court ruled on her case. A deliberate breach can justify dismissal without notice even when the damage is small. But the court also weighed the Vertrauenskapital, the trust capital, that she had built up in more than three decades of service without problems. The dismissal was invalid, and a written warning would have been enough.
Saying Du Does Not Sell
In 2021 Susanne Hensel-Börner of the HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration and Udo Kords of the FOM published a study titled Duzen bringt keine Vorteile, saying du brings no advantage. In an experiment, 308 participants watched short videos of sales staff greeting customers in a bank, a car dealership and a sports shop. The staff used either Sie or du. The authors report: Kunden reagieren mehrheitlich positiver auf die Anrede mit Sie. Most customers respond more positively to being addressed with Sie. Taken across all three settings, the likelihood of buying that participants reported was significantly higher with Sie.
The Good Things
Since 1988 the mail-order company Manufactum has sold solid, long-lived goods under the slogan Es gibt sie noch, die guten Dinge. They still exist, the good things. The range includes preserving jars, hat boxes, willow baskets and stainless-steel vacuum cleaners. The product texts use words such as altbewährt, long proven, gediegen, solid, and stabil, sturdy. In 2007 the Otto group took the company over.
The slogan promises that good things still exist. It also says that they have become rare.
A Receipt for Every Roll
Since January 1, 2020, every sale through an electronic cash register in Germany must produce a receipt. Customers do not have to take it. The duty came with a law against the manipulation of cash registers. The bakers’ trade objected. Wir können auch nicht nachvollziehen, wie diese Angaben eine Kassenmanipulation verhindern oder erschweren sollen. We cannot see how these details are supposed to prevent or hinder manipulation. In 2025 the new governing coalition planned to abolish the duty. The tax officials’ union warned that giving up eine bewährte Kontrollmaßnahme, a proven control measure, would send a fatal signal. In July 2026 a Finance Ministry draft kept the duty to issue a receipt. From 2028 it is to be digital, and customers may still ask for paper.
Every Item Counted
Section 240 of the German Commercial Code requires every merchant to record everything the business owns and owes genau, exactly, with the value of each single item. The merchant does this when the business starts, and again at the end of every business year. In a shop this means the Inventur, the stocktaking. Every item in stock is counted and recorded. It usually means closing the shop for a day, classically on December 31. A section on the annual accounts, Section 246, opens with the heading Vollständigkeit, completeness.
When Goods Are Free of Defects
Section 434 of the German Civil Code defines when goods are free of defects. Since January 1, 2022, they must meet three sets of requirements. The subjective requirements are those agreed in the contract. The objective requirements apply unless the parties have validly agreed otherwise. The goods must be fit for ordinary use and have the quality that is üblich, usual, for goods of the same kind. The third set covers assembly. Delivering the wrong item also counts as a defect. The new wording implements an EU directive. It is the legal rule behind a Reklamation, a complaint about faulty goods in a shop.
A product can match the contract and still be defective.
The Grade Ritter Sport Took to Court
At the end of November 2013 Stiftung Warentest, the German consumer testing foundation, gave Ritter Sport’s whole-nut chocolate the grade mangelhaft, deficient. The reason was the label “natural flavoring” for the flavor piperonal, which the testers said was produced chemically. Ritter Sport and its flavor supplier Symrise said the flavor was natural. The company went to court. The Munich Regional Court barred Warentest from repeating its claim, and the Munich Higher Regional Court rejected Warentest’s appeal. In September 2014 Warentest ended the dispute. It had not explained precisely and fully enough how it reached its verdict.
The Deposit That Started Itself
In 1991 Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer put the packaging ordinance into force. It contained a rule designed to act on its own. If the share of reusable drink containers fell below its 1991 level of 72 percent, and a second count confirmed it, a deposit on one-way containers would follow. Germans call this the Pfandautomatismus, the deposit automatism. In 1997 the share fell just below 72 percent. After the confirming count and a long political fight, the deposit applied from 1 January 2003.
When It Has to Turn Out Well
Wenn’s gut werden muss. When it has to turn out well. This is the established slogan of Bauhaus, a German chain of DIY stores. In 2019 a new agency developed the campaign further around the same claim. The company’s own site asks: Warum muss es eigentlich gut werden? Why does it actually have to turn out well?