Schlecker Home Shopping

Since opening their first discount drugstore in Germany in 1974, Schlecker had grown to be one of the biggest retail employers in Europe, and the number one drugstore in Germany. Now the time had come for Schlecker to consider whether their succesful model would translate to the online world. In 1999 in Germany, there was a lot of hype around about the promise that the Internet would bring, however the Internet had yet to become established there. Developing an on-line store was blue-skies territory for Schlecker. Would online sales really justify the costs of developing an online store? And was the online market really suitable for drugstore products? Before rushing headlong into online retail, Anton Schlecker asked his strategy manager to consider whether moving online was really an appropriate strategy for Schlecker at that time, or whether they would be better off to wait until the market was a little more developed.