Thalia closes pandemic-inspired online portal

Germany’s largest book chain Thalia has quietly shelved Shopdaheim.de, the online portal set up during the first Covid lockdown as a network linking booksellers and retailers with local consumers who were looking for shopping alternatives to Amazon. In a sparse statement Thalia said that after the end of the pandemic, demand for an online platform to assist and revitalise bricks-and-mortar retailers in the high street had been levelling off among consumers.

Shopdaheim.de, which at times had listed up to 25,000 shops from 84 different retail areas, was the last remaining platform of what had once been three independent shopping portals initiated by the book trade during the last few years. First to go was the German offshoot of the US-based Buy Local initiative which pulled the plug at the end of 2022. Earlier this year the German trade association Börsenverein shut down Buchhandlung-finden.de, a platform to help consumers find local bookshops.