Large city centre stores and supermarkets are open Monday to Saturday 09:00-20:00. Smaller shops close as early as 18:30 on weekdays and at 14:00 on Saturday. All shops, apart from souvenir shops on the Römer (Frankfurt central square) and garden centers/farm stores are closed on Sunday and on public holidays - there are very few exceptions. You will need to plan ahead - especially if one or more public holidays falls on a Saturday or on a Monday - meaning you will not be able to visit a grocery store for 2 or more days! In an emergency, you can still find some options: many shops in the main train station (Hauptbahnhof) and the airport are open; you can usually find fresh bread and necessity items at gas stations (Tankestelle), many of which are open 24h a day/7 days a week; and many bakeries are open on Sunday mornings until about 12:00. Big department stores such as Karstadt/Galeria Kaufhof offer a variety of brands to choose, from clothes, perfumes, and everything for the home, as well as a restaurant on the top floor. On the basement floor, they have a supermarket where, apart from normal supermarket products, you can often find a lot of specialty food – including a larger selection of delicatessens, many things that you might not be able to find in a regular grocery store. There are some good shopping centers in town, like Skyline Plaza near the Messe S-Bahn station (American Food Store, Chipotle, higher-end shops). The Main-Taunus-Zentrum is an open-air mall with plenty of apparel, shoes, electronics, kids' gear, sporting goods, etc. And downtown at MyZeil in Frankfurt, you can find almost any big-name German store. For great deals on luxury clothes, housewares, and accessories (all in a stunning location), Wertheim Village is a shoppers paradise near Frankfurt. A perfect girls day out, In coordination with Wertheim our Club offers twice annual VIP shopping events, including transportation and extra goodies: Many people use Amazon.de to get English books, but it's also recommended to use your local bookstore, which likely offers the same English books at the same prices and the same delivery time as Amazon.de - because Germany controls the prices on books so as not to eliminate smaller businesses that keep the German economy going. You can easily search online at your local bookstore, and books are usually delivered to their store within 1-2 business days for you to pick up. It's a great way to support the local economy and befriend some local shop owners - all while getting books in your native language! Here are some examples of bookstores you might try (just use their search bar to search for book titles in English, and you will get results in English):
https://bollinger.buchhandlung.de/shop/
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Hugendubel in downtown Frankfurt has a rich selection of foreign language books (Fremdsprachiger Bücher) and books for learning German. This multi-level store is located in the city centre (Steinweg 12, 60313 Frankfurt, with entrances also on the Goetheplatz and the Biebergasse) and offers comfortable places to sit and read and a nice café in the basement. You can comfortably order online under: www.hugendubel.de. For more information about book shops, check this out: www.newinthecity.de/en/shopping-frankfurt-rhein-main/3277-special-shops-in-frankfurt.html
It’s also easier than you think to shop online. Best-known shopping websites are Amazon and Zalando. Deliveries inside Germany are very quick compared to the United States, sometimes next day. If you get a note from the post office or a delivery service (Hermes, DHL) saying that you need to go to the post office or delivery location to pick up a package, then you only have one week to do this. After one week your package will be returned to the sender. They will likley ask for ID, so you may want to take your passport or driver’s license along. Your package may be accepted by someone else in your building. If this happens, a note will be placed in your mailbox telling you that you have a package and which neighbor has your package. This also means that you may be asked to sign for someone else’s package occasionally, if you happen to be home and they aren’t.
For Christmas trees, there are plenty of options, like IKEA, Sunflower Garden Center, Mauk Garden Center, and local tree farms, like Hof Kofler in Oberursel (you may find one closer to your town - just search for 'Weihnachtsbaumverkauf' along with your town name):
Here is a website that offers Frankfurt-specific products for gifts or for fun:
German people love working on their house and garden for fun, and take pride in doing a lot of the work themselves. This is why you can find a great variety of DIY stores, generally called Baumarkt everywhere. Here are a few names of more popular DIY stores: Toom, Hornbach, Bauhaus, Hellweg.
Finally, some tips on shopping etiquette:
- Grocery store employees have the right-of-way in store aisles, because stores do not have a lot of free space, items need to be restocked often, and people do not work nights and Sundays to restock shelves. Please be kind if an employee is restocking shelves, or needs to get through an aisle with a large cart!
- During check-out, you are expected to quickly bag your own groceries, or put them in your shopping basket, as the cashier totals your bill. It is a good idea to have your bank card or cash ready to pay when the cashier is finished. Germans are really quite patient when waiting for a good reason (line is long, store is busy, etc), but become quite impatient when someone needlessly makes everyone else wait. It is a little hard to adjust to this, but many people come to appreciate how everyone works together so that everyone can benefit.
- It is customary to offer a, 'Hallo!' when you enter a smaller store or boutique, and a, 'Tschüss!' when leaving
- German people still use cash in many situations, so it's a good idea to carry a variety of small coins and bills to pay at places that might not be equipped for card payments
- During COVID, many stores want you to take a shopping basket or cart, so they know how many people are in the store at once
Happy Shopping!