“The ‘Kaufhaus Österreich”: The now responsible digital state secretariat gave the total costs to the APA at 946,068.54 euros. The fact that the former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Economics, Michael Esterl, estimated the costs at 1.2 million euros just a few days ago in the ÖVP U-Committee is just as “incomprehensible” as the 1.8 million euros of which the SPÖ speaks, it said when asked by the office of the responsible digital state secretary Florian Tursky (ÖVP).

The platform closes on July 1st. The project has not fulfilled the actual benefit, it is said. The last maintenance costs of almost 2,200 euros per month (26,235.40 euros per year) will save the taxpayer in the future.

Cooker: the costs have been cut in half

The digital domestic “department store” should definitely go into operation before Christmas 2020. This should cushion a loss of Christmas business for small trading companies without experience in e-commerce in times of CoV lockdowns. It just didn’t work, as the politicians now responsible admit.

“The ‘Kaufhaus Österreich’ was a project that had very good intentions, but didn’t really turn out to be effective from a cost-benefit point of view,” says ÖVP Economics and Labor Minister Martin Kocher. Because of the ongoing costs and because “the targeted goals will not be achieved”, the costs for the taxpayer should be stopped.

“The past has shown that a ‘Kaufhaus Österreich’ is not necessary,” says Tursky. The goal of becoming less dependent on global trading platforms is correct. However, this independence cannot be enforced and must be seen in the European context.

Schramböck argues in favor of the plan

Schramböck originally presented the project with Chamber of Commerce President Harald Mahrer (ÖVP) as a kind of Austrian response to online giants like Amazon. She rejected criticism of the costs at the time, but she herself criticized the “Twitter Tribunal” for the much mockery of the platform, where customers often found completely different things than what they were looking for. Only the search function was not well designed, according to the ex-politician.

The site was programmed by the state data center. “It was important to start the discussion about the necessity of e-commerce for our dealers,” Schramböck tried to argue.

The resignation was announced by the Chamber of Commerce

Actually, an online shopping platform should be created – organized by the Chamber of Commerce (WKO) and the Ministry. The flopped shop search function was discontinued after two months. The state-run Austria Wirtschafts Service (AWS) then took over the operation of the website as a dealer platform on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, where subsidies were awarded and advice on digitization was to be given.

The Chamber of Commerce withdrew from the project. According to the ministry, existing useful content is now being secured and transferred to other platforms. These come to the company service portal.