It’s too stupid if Christmas tree baubles don’t come to stores until February. Nobody wants gnomes with pointed hats after New Year’s Eve. And it annoys customers when they can only buy pants from a ski suit, even though a combination with a jacket is advertised.

This is how you have to imagine the problem that the discount chain has Lidl for a long time: During the pandemic, retailers often had to wait weeks for their goods from China. Container ships often arrived much too late due to traffic jams in the ports. When we arrived in Rotterdam or Hamburg, celebrations such as Halloween, Christmas and Easter were over – no one wanted to buy the seasonal items on board the delayed freighters anymore. Lidl was left with mountains of non-food and had to decide: store it or destroy it. Both are expensive.