Dusseldorf’s city bakery Hinkel seems to bring back the good old days of bakery shops and a record breaking bread shelf.
- Customers delight: the above picture shows a moment of slow business; during peak hours customers line up in long rows
This order was certainly a highlight in the daily business at Korte shop fitting. After ten years in operation, Germany’s ‘show baker’ Josef Hinkel from Dusseldorf wished to remodel his main shop situated in a great location in the city center. His requirements for the shop fitters were quite unusual: no brick baking-ovens, no service points, no refrigerated counters, no coffee machines, no catering. Hinkel just wanted a simple bakery shop. Modern but in no way showy.
“My target group is the everyday customer who wants to buy good bread at a fair price”, says Hinkel. Every detail of the new shop interior had to be functional and long lasting because more bread is probably sold in the “Mittelstrasse” shop in Dusseldorf than in any other bakery shop in Germany. Ten sales girls (during peak hours even more) have a great deal to do to meet everyone’s demand for bread, rolls and pastries. The merchandise is presented on record breaking 46 consecutive meters of shelves and a counter with 3 intermediate shelves fitting 22 baking trays. The entire space is filled. Hinkel achieves a proud turnover of 3.2 Mio € with only one more shop plus some direct delivery customers.
Deliberate Limitation
- Hinkel’s most important means of marketing is Hinkel himself
Hinkel deliberately breaks the rules of a modern bakery and of modern shop fitting; and this is exactly what makes him unique. With continued success, he concentrates on his core competence in a location where every other baker would have included snacks and coffee in their line of products. His main product is referred to even in his logo „bakery of the friends of bread“. Anyone will understand this hint when walking past the bakery shop: the shop window is a true eye catcher for every shop fitter and it attracts the crowds. Via the enormous variety of displayed bread types the eye follows into the shop which is filled with customers at all times. Needless to say: any controller would have cut this bread variety short.
The products form only part of the phenomenon Hinkel. Two more aspects are essential: first of all there is Hinkel himself. During morning hours you find him in his shop “Backstubenladen” and after lunch he sells in his shop in “Mittelstrasse” and actively serves behind the counter. He drops the occasional compliment for the old lady, he has small talk with the city known artist, or he flirts with the young lady. Others may meet his bread quality but Kamps & company cannot copy the trustworthy ‘master baker’ in sales. Finally, the third milestone on his way to success is invisible to the crowds: Hinkel attaches great importance to independent employees and managers to whom he assigns a great deal of responsibility and leaves much room for decisions.
Quality lies in the Detail
- Telescopic bars make handling easy
The ‘master baker’ did not wish to change the basic store concept. Nonetheless, the new shop fitting concept consisted of many details to be taken into consideration by Korte Einrichtungen. Most important change: height of the ceiling was raised by 90 cm from 2.6m to 3.5 m. This gives the store a significant upgrade – an important aspect when customers wait in lines of 5 in front of the counter. Another crucial aspect is the powerful air conditioning system.
The goods in the counter are set in the right light by individual illumination for every intermediate shelf. A new technique produces only one third of the heat as normal lamps. Last but not least, this counter features yet another highlight: an installed vacuum cleaner system with 5 possible tube connections. The remaining room above the bread shelves is used for a circular band showing special offers. If you like to knock on wood you have plenty of room to do that in the Hinkel store: Korte Einrichtungen installed much solid oak wood. And the customers react positively. Only one problem could not be solved by the shop fitting concept. A customer phrased it this way: “I can never come in the store and find it empty so I am served immediately.”