Discounter Kik to close around 300 stores and appoints Ulrich Hanfeld as CEO

Retail|Updated

A Kik textile discounter store. Image: Kik

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Textile and homeware discounter Kik is closing hundreds of stores this year. Chief financial officer Christian Kümmel announced this in an interview with the German Press Agency. The number of stores in Europe will fall by approximately 225 to just over 4,000 by the end of 2026, with a reduction of 135 to around 2,200 in Germany. Across Europe, 300 closures and 75 new openings are planned. Some locations have already closed, with others to follow in the coming months.

“We are trimming our portfolio for profitability,” said managing director and chief financial officer Kümmel. “The formula ‘we open five new stores and get five times as many customers’ has not worked out 100 percent.” In some cases, stores are less than one kilometre apart. “We expanded too densely. We are scaling that back.” All remaining locations are profitable.

Kik did not provide a complete list of the stores that are to be closed or have already been shut down. It was reported that numerous employees have not yet been informed. “We will continue to employ the staff from the affected stores in other branches or find another solution,” said Kümmel. Redundancies are not planned. Kik employs around 32,000 people, 19,000 of whom are in Germany. Kümmel can imagine that the store network will be further streamlined in the coming years.

Kik chief: “our loyal customer base is growing”

The company announced in September 2025 that it would close unprofitable stores to increase its competitiveness. Some stores had already been closed by the end of the year. According to Kümmel, around 100 stores have been closed annually in the past, but the number of new openings has always been higher.

According to Kümmel, Kik's business model continues to perform well. “Our loyal customer base is growing.” Nevertheless, the company is feeling the effects of consumer reluctance to spend. “Although the discount sector as a whole is attracting customers, we are seeing that the occasional purchase is being omitted.” According to Kümmel, consumer behaviour has changed. “There is a high willingness to switch and price sensitivity among customers.”

The managing director sees increasing competitive pressure from brick and mortar retailers like Woolworth, NKD and Action, as well as Asian shopping platforms such as Shein and Temu. However, Kik wants to stick to its core concept and remain primarily a textile discounter. The core target group will continue to be women aged between 30 and 60 and their families. Around 60 percent of the range consists of textiles, with the remainder being non-food products such as homewares and decorative items.

Brick and mortar retail is thinning out

Long-standing chief Patrick Zahn left Kik in September. This week, the company announced that Ulrich Hanfeld will become his successor on June 1.

Kik is the abbreviation for “Kunde ist König” (Customer is King) and was founded in 1994. The chain is now present in 14 European countries. In 2024, the company recorded a turnover of 2.4 billion euros. In Germany, Kik is one of the retailers with the most points-of-sale.

Brick and mortar retail is under significant pressure due to growing competition from online retail and poor consumer sentiment. According to a forecast by the German Retail Federation, the number of stores is expected to fall below 300,000 this year. At the end of 2015, there were still around 372,000.

The number of insolvencies in the sector is at its highest level in ten years, according to the credit insurer Allianz Trade. In 2025, 2,571 cases were recorded.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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