Quelle Crisis
I guess it’s nice to know that U.S. catalogers aren’t the only ones struggling. German mail order giant Quelle is waiting for a bailout after its financing was cut off. The general merchandise mailer is now looking for alternative funding to print its fall/winter catalogs.
What happened? Quelle’s parent company, Arcandor, which also owns the Karstadt department store chain, declared the German version of Chapter 11 on June 9 after failed attempts to secure state aid and guarantee debt.
According to published reports this week, representatives from the Federal government and the states of Bavaria and Saxony agreed to provide Quelle with loans worth 50 million euros to keep the cataloger operating. But the German ministries are still deciding whether the state of Bavaria can grant Quelle the loans, so the cataloger remains on hold.
Although I haven’t seen a copy in years, Quelle is an old-school big book catalog like Sears used to be. It sells everything from apparel and accessories to major appliances and furniture. (Quelle means “source” in German, at least according to Wikipedia. I never took German.)
Here’s hoping Quelle gets some cash and stays in business. The cataloger has been around for more than 80 years and has long been considered a world leader in mail order. I assume it’s now mastered multichannel commerce as well.
I’d share some of the company’s background, but on the “history” page of the Quelle corporate Website, the timeline starts off in English, but then when you click the “more” link, the page it takes you to is in German. Did I mention I never took German?
