Can you go shopping on Good Friday?

April 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hot Cross BunI was asked this week if the shops are open in Germany on Good Friday.

It’s a simple answer: no.

Even on Gründonnerstag (Maundy Thursday) many shops are required to shut earlier than usual, with supermarkets that usually stay open until 9pm, 10pm or even midnight on other days closing their doors at 8pm and not opening again until Saturday morning.

And when they do open there will be a last-minute rush for Osterhasen and generally a lot of people stocking up before everything shuts again for another two days.

With even the bakeries closed on Good Friday, the petrol stations will be doing a good trade and are probably the best place to go if you run out of anything over the weekend.

Filed Under: Easter, Shops Tagged With: , , , ,

Osterhase? Nur solange der Vorrat reicht

April 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“Nur solange der Vorrat reicht” is one of those standard German sentences that you often see on any type of special offer that a shop or online vendor advertises for.  Quite simply it means “while stocks last”.

So, as in the English equivalent, you might find that an offer is particularly popular and goes out of stock.

However, this being Germany there are rules on how long a product has to be “in stock” for a shop to be able to claim this, so that they do not purposely have very few available and just use the offer to get people to enter the store.  In the event that they do run out without a certain amount of time, they have to offer the consumers who want to take advantage of it the chance to receive the product later at the advertised price. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Easter, Shops Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The sad story of the “Displaypreis”

January 26, 2011 By 2 Comments

Price tag - ©iStockphoto.com/alexslQ: When is a price not a price?

A: When it’s a “Displaypreis”

What sounds like a bad joke actually happened to me at a local supermarket last week – the very simple case of when the price on the shelf does not match the price in the computer.

Of course, this being Germany there is a law to govern such things and it is called the Preisangabenverordnung and acts in a similar way to the Sale of Goods act in the UK.  As I understand it, you cannot display a price on the shelf and then ask for a higher one at the till.

And yet it happens and I am usually more than willing to point this out and insist on paying the price that was on display.

Over the years I have experienced various answers.  Most supermarkets will just check that I am right and charge me the lower price, although I remember taking one employee to a shelf to show that the price in the computer was off by several Deutschmarks, only for them to remove the sign in question and say “so, now it’s not anymore” and insist on the higher price.

I have also been in supermarkets when the prices have been raised during the course of the day, so that the price on the shelf changed after I took something off it!

But the absolute winner in excuses was the one last week.  The Displaypreis. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Shops Tagged With: , , ,

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