Creative in the crisis: FAIRPLAY Award for NOCH

The company NOCH from Wangen / Allgäu was honoured with the FAIRPLAY Award for its partnership support of specialist dealers during the Corona Year 2020.

The jury found NOCH's partnership behaviour throughout the year very commendable. The NOCH team took every opportunity to actively support their specialist dealers who were hit hardest by lockdowns and a lack of customers and sales.

Right at the beginning of the crisis in March 2020, an action guide was issued to the dealers, which could encourage and support them to orientate themselves and continue selling goods with pick-up, delivery or shipping stations and corresponding customer service. NOCH also partly took over the delivery of goods for the retailers directly to their customers in order to relieve small retailers logistically. In addition, the specialist dealers received advertising support on the company's social media channels. NOCH's consumer marketing, for example in the daily video series "NOCH Corona Chronicles", was designed to get families excited about the hobby and encourage them to order from the local dealer.

While sales in the stationary trade slumped, NOCH saw an increase in sales in its own online shop. In order to give the dealers a share of these sales, the company launched the "Support Your Local NOCH Dealer!” Every order in the online shop could be marked by the customer with a dealer ID of "his" regular local dealer. NOCH then credited 15 % of the value of the online order to the dealer's customer account as immediate assistance. "We had calls from retailers who wanted to inform us that we must have made a mistake because there was suddenly too much money in their customer account. We were so quick with the idea and implementation that the traders, some of whom were faced with nothing, did not expect such quick and consistent support. The joy and gratitude was all the greater when we were able to announce that it was not an oversight," says Sebastian Topp, Managing Director at NOCH.

The promotion even ran for a month longer than the first lockdown in 2020 lasted to support retailers in restarting business. In addition, accommodating value date and payment rules were negotiated with dealers to support them in the best possible way.

"For our whole team, this award is a great thing! We have had our hands full since the beginning of the pandemic to meet the constantly changing challenges and requirements. As a medium-sized company, we depend on the trade structures in Germany and Europe remaining intact and and no commercial monopoly by large American Internet companies takes place. We are therefore pleased that we could not only actively help the local trade with our actions, but also that this commitment is noticed and even awarded", Sebastian Topp continues.

The jury of the FAIRPLAY Award is made up of key decision-makers from business, retail and science. With the patron Dr. H. C. Wolfgang Thierse, former President of the German Bundestag, solidarity with small and medium-sized specialist shops is integrated in a special way. At the campaign launch, he emphasised: "How diverse and colourful our cities and our lives will be now depends on our behaviour." The jury includes Dr. Claudia Ossola-Haring (SRH University of Applied Sciences Heidelberg), Horst Garbrecht (COOE Koki Holdings), Marc Eisinnger (founder and managing director of the charity shopping portal 'Kauft-Lokal'), Lorenz Huck (co-developer of the FAIRPLAY campaign and representative of the management of the 'markt intern' subsidiary mit consulting) and Marko Schucht (key co-developer of the FAIRPLAY campaign and representative of the management mit consulting).

The NOCH company is looking positively into the future and wants to continue to combine the advantages of the offline world with those of local trade. This is the only way to survive the still ongoing Corona period together. A strong interlocking of manufacturers and local retailers will become even more important in the future for the sustainable success of both partners.

Here is the markt-intern report on the FAIRPLAY Award 2020.

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Creative in the crisis: FAIRPLAY Award for NOCH