Journalist at the magazine 60 Million consumers, Patricia Chairopoulos investigated dark stores. You may be familiar with shadow kitchens, restaurants that serve food but that you don’t even notice in the street. Everything is delivered thanks to the various mobile applications. Dark stores are the same thing.
franceinfo: So we can shop in a supermarket without going there?
Patricia Chairopoulos: Yes exactly. In fact, it’s what we call ghost supermarkets, ie we don’t see them. The windows are pacified, so we know. Warehouses are in the city centers. They are closed to the public and only dedicated to delivery.
These companies each have their own warehouses with a hyper-optimized organization. Or sometimes even, they join forces with large supermarket chains that exist?
In fact, the supplies are either with their own purchasing groups, or indeed they are backed by major brands, such as Carrefour for example. But in any case, the principle being that in the warehouse, there are some 2000 or 3000 references, as soon as an order arrives on their site, presto, the person will put all the groceries in a shopping cart and then the delivery man waits and he leaves to deliver within fifteen minutes.
These services have been available in France for how long?
It’s very recent. In fact, most have established themselves in 2021. In several players have arrived. Mainly companies, foreign start-ups, either Germans like Gorillaz, or English like Goku too, or Getty which is a Turkish company. There is Cajoo, which is a French company but which has just been acquired by Flick. So you see, it’s a bit of a funny market. And basically, and we only find them for the moment in the big cities of Paris of course. Lille, Marseille, Lyon, depending on the brands, yes.
Does it attract more and more consumers?
Yes, it seems. In any case, it is obvious that there is a market, especially since the confinements. We finally got into the habit of staying at home, of going to supermarkets less. And then the delivery arrived precisely at that time, we also avoid queuing. So it’s true that it mainly appeals to the younger generations, but also families. The father or the mother who realizes at 11 o’clock in the evening that they have more nappies for the little ones. Well there you go, in fifteen minutes, they will receive them.
Are there other price advantages, for example?
In fact, the main advantage, indeed, is speed. That is to say that we place our order which arrives directly, at most in 30 minutes, we are delivered. On the other hand, in terms of price, it is necessarily a little more expensive than in supermarkets, since we have taken a few standard products and it is 20 to 0.30 euros more expensive, not to mention the cost of delivery. . So it’s definitely a bit more expensive. But the service rendered is that you don’t move from your sofa.
But do we find the bad sides of uberization, a form of unfair competition with small businesses?
So yeah, that’s mostly it. It’s actually small businesses. We know that in city centers, people are not always very well. Obviously, they take a dim view of the establishment of these small mini-markets which, in the end, are not really supermarkets, but which snatch customers from them. The problem with these dark stores is that they are in city centers, mostly in apartment buildings. Which means that there is a wide latitude of schedules, roughly from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m., which means that there are delivery people all day. And local residents complain in particular about noise pollution.