How French businesses urgently engage in "click & collect"

INVESTIGATION

While the number of daily cases of coronavirus is still very high in France, it is time to mobilize for closed businesses.

Everyone who sells non-essentials has lowered the curtain since October 30, when the second lockdown began.

But they can still use "click & collect", an online sales system with in-store collection or home delivery.

Except that only one in three VSE-SMEs has its own website, compared to 72% in Germany.

France is starting from afar but, with the experience of the first confinement, traders are organizing themselves in an emergency to maintain a minimum of activity thanks to digital technology.

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The "click & collect", an undeniable contribution of activity

"We didn't necessarily need it, I set up a site because I'm a bit of a geek. But we're a pioneer I think."

Mikaël Rizzo thinks well.

Few of the local shops have digitized their activity.

Boss of a butcher's shop in Venelles, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, adopted Shapper, a "click & collect" application, at the end of 2019. "After the holiday season, she barely made a living. And then during confinement. , it started again suddenly. With the application, we made 50% more turnover from March to May, "says Mikaël Rizzo.

"There, it started again with a bang. We have a lot of customers who order and collect the meat in the evening."

This butcher intends to continue once the confinement is over, but he recognizes it: "it is still necessary to devote a lot of time to it to follow the stocks and the evolution of the prices".

Food is also the sector that is doing the best, with around 40% of businesses digitized.

Clothing, on the other hand, is lagging behind.

One in three fashion stores does have a website, but it is often an empty typo.

According to figures from the Clothing Federation, only 20% are able to sell online or "click & collect".

The goal, set by Bruno Le Maire, of 50% of digitized businesses in 2021, will require efforts.

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National aid and local initiatives

Many traders are therefore turning to digital specialists.

"At the moment, we receive 10 to 15% more calls from our professional customers, on all subjects, than usual. It goes from a simple forwarding of the office phone to a mobile to the creation of a website ", explains Pierre Clément, corporate director of Orange France, which provides, in addition to the network," turnkey "e-commerce sites.

Its sales for these sites, delivered all the same in two to three weeks, doubled in a few days.

This enthusiasm is accompanied by an explosion in demand for fiber connections: + 60% in one year at Orange for businesses.

Since it is not always profitable to create a site alone, we are also seeing groups of businesses in the same city center which are organized around a single site.

This is the case in Limoges, La Rochelle, Le Mans, Lorient… with or without the help of the town hall.

When the city helps, it can call on La Poste, or rather its subsidiary "Ma ville, mon shopping", which provides municipalities with platforms on which businesses can sell their products.

The municipality buys the service and behind, all the stores can register for free and benefit from a 2.0 showcase and a delivery solution, for a commission on each transaction.

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"At the moment, we have 600 stores that register every day. We've never seen that!", Says Thierry Chardy, co-founder of "My city, my shopping", the platform acquired by La Poste in 2018 A major boost, since this solution has so far been deployed in 270 cities and with 1,300 partner shops.

"We saw a first enthusiasm during the first confinement but not in the same proportions. We are in the process of winning five years of digital transformation at once," he believes.

Municipalities wishing to set up this type of platform can apply for financial assistance, Bercy said.

Bercy puts 100 million euros on the table

To support businesses, the government has in fact activated several levers.

First, a call for projects: all digital players capable of creating sites or apps for merchants are invited to offer free or preferential rate offers out of solidarity.

These solutions, which have been scrutinized by the teams of the ministry, will be referenced from Tuesday on a dedicated site: "clique-mon-commerce.gouv.fr".

In addition, Bercy will put its hand in the portfolio: 100 million euros to accelerate the digitization of VSEs and SMEs.

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All businesses that are administratively closed, and do not yet have a website, can request assistance of 500 euros to set one up.

Some 120,000 companies would be affected, according to comments made by Bruno Le Maire in the columns of the 

.

But for Eric Mertz, president of the National Clothing Federation, the government waited until the last moment to act.

"It's too late! We had filed a plan on Bruno Le Maire's desk on August 10. We were asking for 150 million euros for the digital transition of clothing stores, in exchange for commitments. We have never had back "he laments.

Still, a fundamental movement seems to be underway.

"There was an acceleration during the first confinement, and it is even more marked at the moment. It will become part of the DNA of companies, digitalization is an urgent necessity nowadays", assures Pierre Clément, director of companies of Orange.

Especially since everyone is doing their part, including the "big" sometimes singled out.

Intermarché has opened a "solidarity drive" for independent bookstores;

Carrefour offers a subscription to its "marketplace" until the end of 2020;

and even Amazon is reaching out to small businesses with a discounted offer to sell on the American giant's site.