The main building also becomes a Müller branch

The end of the traditional Swiss brand Franz Carl Weber (FCW) is coming slowly. Last year, the German drugstore chain Müller took over from the previous owners, the German toy chain Simba Dickie and FDP National Councilor Marcel Dobler. Since then, locations in Basel, Lucerne and Bern have been converted into Müller branches. Others, like the one in Biel, were closed.

According to Müller’s website, of the 23 Franz Carl Weber stores in 2023, 13 are still left – and the dismantling continues. Now even the parent company is in trouble. The days of the flagship branch on Bahnhofplatz in Zurich are numbered, as can be seen from a planning application published in December.

This marks the end of a 143-year history. In 1881, the German emigrant Franz Philipp Karl Friedrich Weber opened his first shop on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse. The company, which had temporarily grown to over 50 branches across the country, remained in the family’s hands until 1984, then was sold to Denner and in 2006 to the French group Ludendo, which went bankrupt in 2016. Simba Dickie, Dobler and former CEO Yves Burger, who left in 2019, then took over.

Müller remains silent

In the summer of 2016, Franz Carl Weber left the main branch on Bahnhofstrasse and moved to the location near the main train station. Customers shouldn’t have hopes that the flagship will survive. The Swiss Müller subsidiary based in Oberentfelden in Aargau speaks of a “conversion of the existing Franz Carl Weber branch into a Müller branch” in the building application.

The aim is to offer a range from the areas of “drugstore, perfumery, stationery, toys, multimedia, nature shop with packaged organic food, household goods, stockings, handicrafts, animal shop”. In the future, toys will run under the motto “and ran”.

Müller’s press office does not want to answer questions about the renovation. It also does not provide any information about the future of the few remaining branches of the former traditional business. The time frame set was “unfortunately not tenable for the internal communication processes”. This feedback does not come as a surprise: the press office of the German retail giant did not want to provide any answers to an earlier query about the strategy in Switzerland, citing exactly the same reasons.

Müller is expanding rapidly

Although ex-owner Marcel Dobler emphasized in an interview with CH Media last year that the FCW brand would remain, it is now gradually disappearing from the city centers. Dobler, who actually wanted to join the board of directors, left after just a few months. Shortly after the takeover, the new owners also shut down the online shop and put up posters in the FCW branches drawing attention to the imminent conversion into a Müller store.

Müller belongs to the corporate empire of the 92-year-old founder and billionaire Erwin Müller. The drugstore chain achieved net sales of 4.6 billion euros in the 2022/2023 financial year with around 35,000 employees. Müller currently operates around 940 branches in eight European countries.

Even after Müller took over FCW, there was speculation in industry circles that the retailer might be less interested in the traditional brand than in the good inner-city locations for its own expansion. These are highly competitive in Switzerland and come onto the market comparatively rarely.

DM is left out

In fact, Müller was able to increase the pace of expansion in this country: While the retailer still had 69 branches in Switzerland at the end of 2022, there were already 91 at the beginning of November this year. The growth came about thanks to the conversion of FCW branches, but also thanks to new openings.

Müller is the third largest drugstore chain in Germany after DM and Rossmann. Rossmann also wants to target the Swiss market and opened its first local branch in the Emmen Center in Emmen LU at the beginning of December. The next opening is planned in Brunnen SZ. Rossmann wants to operate over 150 branches in Switzerland in the medium term. The company is currently looking for space in cities, but also in “rural areas or rural regions with an extensive catchment area”.

Expansion into Switzerland is currently not an issue at DM, as the group confirmed to several media outlets a few weeks ago. However, a few dozen products from DM’s own brand Balea have been available in Manor department stores since August.

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