This time I went for a walk on Kurfürstendamm. This was the nicest shopping street in west Berlin and even today several of the more expensive stores are located on this street.
The shopping bags that I saw were mainly from: Nike (never walked past the store though), Karstadt, KaDeWe (actually belongs to Karstadt today), H&M, C&A, Görtz & Mango
Adidas - selling sports shoes, cloths etc. I have lately seen plenty of younger women wearing their sportsbags but do not seem to be on their way to sports. Some youth trend maybe. Eitherway Adidas is on the stock market. I find them too expensive today as most stocks on MDax are currently. If they make a heavy drop like in 2009 then it might be worth to take a closer look at them.
Saturn - The Germans loves to go there and to buy home electronics. Belongs to Metro and it might be worth to take a closer look at them. Last year was pretty bad which is also reflected in the stock value. They will be added to the list for analysis.
KFC - belongs to the yum brands group with pizza hut and taco bell. In Berlin we have very few Pizza hut and KFCs I haven´t seen a single Taco Bell in Europe. I wonder why that is because that is a completely open market. We know how to make pizza, we know several ways to prepare chicken but the mexican food we are currently making ourselves at home unless we want to go to an Alcatraz restaurant and pay 18 € for the meal, which might sound cheap to many of you but in Berlin I raise my eyebrows when I have to pay more then 10 € for the main course.
Görtz - There were plenty of visitors however they had half price on pumps and ballerinas and unfortunately even though I strongly dislike it... women still love to buy and wear ballerinas. So their business is shoes and they even sell that online. The company is family owned from Hamburg.
Urban Outfitters - American cloth company towards young hip people that have started to establish themselves in Europe. Currently they seem to be best established in the UK.They are on the stock market (NASDAQ) but from the figures I was not impressed.
Butlers - Selling everything for the home so designed furniture and kitchen wares etc. The objects they have are fair priced. Have apparetnly 150 stores mainly in EU and as late as 2010 they opened their first store in Spain. Not on the stock market though.
Budapester Shoes - (was an outlet) but they had three stores on the same street. I find that two too many. Handmade shoes with an extremely good quality. The price tag is from 550 and up up and away.
Tommy Hilfiger - this one is actually not based on that there were many customers but only that the people coming out as well as entering were all above 55 years old. Has it become like that or was it always like that? When I look at their homepage it is almost only young rich people that they try to attract and dress. Are they going in the wrong direction? Should they focus more on elderly active very rich people instead that won´t have to ask daddy for the credit card? Company is not on the stock market.
Hard Rock Café - Combining shopping with food and beer. Personally I never got the concept and have neevr bought anything there besides from two beers once. Hmmm... I did not manage to dig out much about this company... ooh... a tribe bought it.
Desigual - Started by a swiss guy and has very colourful cloths. Here they had a lot of customers but very few close to my home. But where I live very few turists are present and on Kurfürstendamm there are plenty I wonder if that matters. Could not find them on stock market.
Berschka - selling cloths etc belong to the inditex group. I need to take a closer look at them. They have more than 5000 stores world wide with Zara being probably the most well known store chain.
Rituals - Soap and loations mentioned previously.
C&A - Selling very cheap cloths but also have an upper quality and price lines. Have 11 dedicated brands. Started in the Netherlands and have grown big up to 1500 stores today in Europe mainly. The Germans currently are not so happy with the brand but I am sure that will change. C&A belongs to the COFRA group sitting in Switzerland so also not on the stock market.
H&M - Selling cheap cloths. Swedish company owned to a large part by the Persson family. I think third generation is running the company today have around 2600 stores world wide. Company is on the stock market and I need to look at both this one as well as Inditex.
Karstadt - Selling everything in lagre store complexes. Did in principle go belly up during the financial crisis. If I remember correctly it was mainly based on ugly shuffling of money from the store part to a renting company that owned all the property. The rents were not even close to market prices. Need to take a look at how this company look today... so it was, during the crisis, bought by Nicolas Berggruen and I am sure that will turn out to have been an excellent investment for him.
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