The Curious World of Tchibo
If you’ve spent any time in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Turkey you will most likely have come across a Tchibo store. The chain is one of Germany’s most successful exports, although it’s not immediately clear why. Tchibo is a high street coffee store, but its unique selling point seems to be that it also supplies a rotating stock of seasonal and often random products. In practice this means that the shop changes out its stock of fitness clothing, garden furniture, kitchen aids or consumer electronics on a weekly basis. While the other stock changes, they continue to sell coffee. Aside from coffee, customers can never guarantee what they might get. It’s like a lucky dip, but as a business model. Customers may enter wanting one thing, but could easily leave with a full lycra bodysuit, a garden trowel, a last-minute holiday and some extra sturdy window locks.
Based in Hamburg, Tchibo’s distinctive name comes from combining the name of the founder, Carl Tchilinghiryan, with the German word for coffee bean, Bohnen, creating Tchibo. The company has grown to be a stalwart of the German high street, where throngs of confused consumers can be seen leaving stores with a phone contract in one hand and an ironing board under the other. The randomness of Tchibo could have begun with its origins as a mail order company in 1949. Walking into a store, it certainly feels like the physical manifestation of a mail order catalogue. In many ways, Tchibo has a lot in common with the British high street curiosity Argos, where customers can browse a full catalogue of items before choosing what they want. Instead, Tchibo offers one page or perhaps a section of a catalogue per week. By rotating the stock on a weekly basis, it goads consumers into making rash purchases from a fear of missing out on a bargain.
Despite selling a wide variety of products, Tchibo isn’t renowned for high quality. Whenever I ask people if they like Tchibo, the majority reply positively, while staring into the middle distance with a look that says “yea, I do like Tchibo, but I don't know why”. People are hard pressed to remember any of the items they bought or if they still use them. They might have picked up a banana shaped box in which to carry a single banana to work, perhaps a musical bottle opener, maybe LED candles or a mold for exact measurements of butter. All of these items have at one time been on sale at Tchibo, but are easily forgotten once the novelty has worn off.
Tchibo’s success seems to come from products that are designed to be forgotten in a kitchen cupboard, next to a sandwich maker. It’s also the go-to store for gifts for people you don’t know very well. Want to buy the boss, the neighbour or the dentist a gift, but have no idea what they may want? No Problem. Tchibo has you covered. Various house-warmings and birthdays have stocked our cupboards with a fine selection of Tchibo branded items. The picture above showcases the few that I could find. My wife and I don’t bake muffins, yet we have enough reusable cake molds to begin a small scale baking company. I’ve never had a problem cutting apples, but at some point, we gained an apple shaped apple cutter. We may have used it once or twice, until we remembered knives existed. The pedometer was bought on a whim one January when we both realised we had overdone the festive period. The green thing? It’s a juicer, but in true Tchibo fashion, there is no clear reason why the base is shaped like a leaf.
The best advice I can give a potential customer of Tchibo is try and buy something that you might actually use. Don't be tricked into buying that oversized gold meditating frog or an electronic dog barking device to scare burglars. My wife, a staunch defender of Tchibo, is adamant that useful bargains can be found, pointing out I had at least one pair of Tchibo socks in my wardrobe. So, if I can say anything about shopping there I would say; get the coffee, buy the socks, leave behind any plans to purchase the jogging parachute. Yes, I said Jogging parchute.
When shopping in Tchibo, hope that they don't have anything too expensive on sale. Best case scenario, you leave with six pairs of jogging trousers and a child’s rocking horse. You might end up buying useless tat, that will someday make up a future car boot sale, but at least the coffee is good.
