The digital farmers market is no longer digital – at least for now. The Austrian startup markta, led by founder and CEO Theresa Imre, has just announced that it will be shutting down its online shop until further notice. The company speaks of a break that will last several months. About a year ago, markta took the step into the offline business and opened its own store for food directly from Austrian producers in Vienna.
“The markta online shop will be paused over the next few months in order to rebuild our logistics and IT infrastructure. This break allows us to sustainably combine the eCommerce area with branch expansion. We have fought hard over the last two years to combine our demands for regionality, sustainability and fair prices with the expectations of “faster, cheaper & more” in online business. Sooner or later it just won’t work out and we don’t want that either,” it said in a release.
You can currently still order from markta as usual and have it delivered on the delivery days – but in a few days this will no longer be possible. Then you have to wait for the online shop to be revised or until it goes online. So what remains is the store that markta opened in Vienna in 2023.
© marketa
Inflation, personnel costs and competition as causes
The digital farmers market was launched in 2018. “We were able to generate several million euros in sales for small farmers through the online shop and have built up an indispensable infrastructure and a strong community of customers and producers,” it continues. “However, in view of inflation, increased personnel costs and the competitive pressure in online trading, we recognize the need to completely reposition this business area.” Until the online shop is ready to start again, markte refers its customers to the branch on Wiener Alser Straße 16 in the 9th district.
In order to build up the offline business, Imre brought Julian Hödlmayr, previously Austrian boss of the Müller retail chain, into her company at the end of 2022 – but he is no longer at markta. Since then, the focus has probably been more on stationary retail and less on online business. The plan is apparently to further expand the number of branches.
It could be seen on the market that things are becoming tighter for smaller providers like markta, as there are numerous online delivery services such as gurkerl.at with an ever-increasing range of organic products, and food retailers are also increasingly focusing on regional and organic products puts.
Markta and the store: Theresa goes offline