The popular Panini stickers are once again available at Valora points of sale for the 2018 football World Cup in Russia. An analysis of sales reveals how fans in Switzerland collect the stickers and how a new trend replaces them in Germany.
Levels of excitement are as high as ever: the Panini stickers for the football World Cup in Russia have been in circulation since the start of sales in Switzerland on 23 March and in Germany on 27 March. Young and old fans are queuing up to get their hands on the stickers, which they are once again collecting, swapping or playing for in small competitions with the objective of completing their Panini album with 682 stickers. The stickers include all 32 competing teams, with 18 players per team, as well as emblems and other images relating to the World Cup in Russia.
Fans need a total of 682 different stickers in order to complete the sticker album. 
Panini fever: the stickers are being collected and swapped once more. 
The popular Panini stickers are once again available at Valora points of sale for the 2018 football World Cup in Russia. 
Young and old fans are queuing up to get their hands on the stickers, which they are once again collecting, swapping or playing.
The Panini time is also a special experience for the employees at Valora’s sales outlets; excited customers enter the shops, ask for a small pack of five stickers and often start ripping them open even before they leave the cash register. At Valora, while k kiosk is the most popular provider of Panini stickers overall, the most popular point of sale is the Press & Books outlet in Winterthur. The stickers are also available at avec. Those who buy nine packs of stickers receive a tenth free of charge, and with the k kiosk app, the sixth pack is already free of charge.
Most stickers are sold over the counter in the first few weeks. In Switzerland, the highest number of packs was sold one week after the start of sales, as was also the case for the 2016 European Championships. After this time, sales fall continuously in the run-up to the World Cup. This reflects the tactic of most fans to initially acquire a good sticker base and to then increasingly swap the stickers among themselves. For the 2016 European Championships, for example, only around a quarter as many packs were sold during the week of the opening match as in the week after the sales launch. Special offers occasionally lead to higher sales, for example when fans have the chance to get all packs at half price for one day with the k kiosk app.
The most popular day by far for buying Panini stickers is Saturday. This comes as no surprise as most swap meets take place on Saturday and the fans have enough time to look through their newly acquired stickers in peace, stick them in their album and take stock of the stickers they are missing.
Where in Switzerland are the
most stickers bought?
Most popular sales outlets for Panini fans in German-speaking Switzerland (as at 28 May 2018):
- Press & Books, Winterthur railway station
- k kiosk, Zug railway station
- k kiosk, Glattzentrum shopping centre in Wallisellen
Most popular sales outlets for Panini fans in French-speaking Switzerland (as at 28 May 2018):
- k kiosk, Geneva railway station
- k kiosk, La Praille in Carouge
- k kiosk, Romanel Centre in Romanel-sur-Lausanne
Trading cards:
the new hit in Germany
While excitement about the stickers in Switzerland is as great as ever, a new trend has become established at Valora sales outlets in Germany that is increasingly replacing the stickers. Many football fans are collecting the so-called trading cards (also from Panini). Here, cards are collected that can be put in a collection album and taken out again. The card of each footballer includes points in line with the player’s abilities which can now be used in tactical games. In addition to the collection album, the starter pack includes a pitch and instructions on how to play against one another. Valora also offers this product at its k kiosk and Press & Books sales outlets.