German retail giants demanded the right to open all night, but shoppers and store workers haven't warmed to the concept, writes a bleary-eyed Derek Scallyin Berlin.
The retail revolution wasn't supposed to be like this.
It's 9.15pm on a Tuesday in a Berlin supermarket. In the aisles, half a dozen customers weave their way past the shelf-packers wearing blue T-shirts labelled "Easy Staff".
At the cash register, the cashier, also wearing a blue T-shirt, is having trouble with a jar of pesto. The scanner doesn't recognise the barcode. Nothing can be done.
"We have to put this into the computer in the morning," explains a flush-faced manager to the customer. "Can you come back for it tomorrow?"
She is the only person actually employed by the supermarket, the others are outsourced agency staff. The unionised employees went home at 8pm.
The pesto-loving customer leaves empty-handed.
Welcome to the brave new world of German retailing where the customer is always wrong.
Once upon a time, life was strict but simple for German shoppers. Stores closed their doors at 8pm from Monday to Saturday and remained shuttered on Sunday.
Then, a year ago, the federal government in Berlin ceded responsibility for retailing law to Germany's 16 federal states.
Some states, like Berlin, abolished the retail laws entirely, a move welcomed by Germany's retailing giants anxious to bring retailing laws into line with European neighbours.
A year on, however, it's clear that decades of German shopping habits are hard to break.
The expected rush of wide-eyed shoppers hasn't happened, forcing nervous store managers to experiment with different opening and closing hours to try and find a new magic formula.
That in turn has irritated customers looking forward to late-night shopping.
"No one knows when the shops close any more - 8, 10 midnight? It's no wonder people stick to their usual hours or stay at home," says Berliner Jan Rützel.
It's not just the customers who are sceptical: the revolution has faced stern opposition from workers in Germany's highly-unionised retail sector.
Few retailers are prepared to meet union conditions of time- and-a-half pay for work after 8pm and instead are hiring in agency staff for the evening shifts.
As a result, a "near-war situation" reigns behind the scenes in many stores, according to services union Verdi.
It has held more than 1,000 strikes at supermarkets and distribution centres in recent months and is planning to step up its campaign during the busy Christmas season.
Germany's retail market is worth a massive €150 billion annually but the competition is brutal. Recent worries about the economy, job security and, increasingly, inflation have squeezed consumer confidence.
Even without these worries, consumers in Germany are extremely price-conscious and far less willing to open their wallets than all their European neighbours.
It's no coincidence that this is the home of Aldi and Lidl.
Union representatives say their current conflict with retailers is a consequence of this merciless price pressure from the discounters on retailers with a greater product range and higher costs.
"Retailers are trying to earn back the money they are losing in price wars on the backs of employees," says Ulrich Dalibor, head of Verdi's retailing division.
Longer opening hours seemed to be the key to boosting turnover.
However he says that longer opening hours - and the corresponding higher costs - hasn't translated into higher takings.
"Retailers claimed that customers were begging for longer opening hours, but the demand isn't there. After all, you can only spend a euro once," says Dalibor.
"We're confident that retailers will come to their senses and go back to hours when the majority of people want to shop and that isn't at 1am."
As the first anniversary of the new regime passed, it was a telling sign that few of the large retailers were willing to comment.
Already there are regional clues that the liberalised laws have been a flop.
In the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, 92 per cent of retailers questioned by a local employers' federation said they had not changed their closing hours.
A survey in the the eastern state of Thuringia produced similar results.
Walking around one of Berlin's bigger department stores shortly before closing time at 10pm, customers are a rare sight. Staff hang around, watching the clock and swapping jokes.
"Nobody wants to buy a Mont Blanc pen at this time of night," remarks one woman from behind her glass display case.
A spokesman for the supermarket chain Rewe says it has no plans to open around the clock, after noticing that its customers were only interested in shopping until 9pm.
"And even then only seldom is it the big weekly shop," said company spokesman Andreas Krämer.
"Mostly it's people looking for individual products."
A report by consulting firm McKinsey suggests that, to profit from the liberalised retailing laws, German companies need to follow the British and Irish example of late-night convenience stores.
This sector in Germany, although underdeveloped and limited to train stations and garage forecourts, still generates turnover of €20 billion annually, 14 per cent of total retail sales. The McKinsey report sees huge room for expansion.
"Stores that satisfy customer wishes for convenience and service, like the old corner shops, are going to experience a comeback," said Peter Breuer, a McKinsey partner and author of the study.
Perhaps it will take the arrival of those red and turquoise shopfronts so familiar to Irish consumers to finally complete Germany's retail revolution.
