On the occasion of the first National Trade Conference which starts this Wednesday in Paris, the president of the federation of Shop In Dijon traders takes stock of the state of the city center after two years of health crisis and of the models that we will have to invent for the future.
France Bleu Bourgogne: how are businesses in downtown Dijon doing after two years of health crisis?
Denis Favier, president of Shop in Dijon: It’s very mixed. Anything related to the house, for example decoration, DIY, it works very, very well. The child is functioning well. On the other hand, women’s clothing has much more difficulty in restarting. The attraction for proximity, an important value during confinement, continues at the food level. That is to say that people have acquired habits. The habit of going to Les Halles, for example, since it was the belly of Dijon that remained open during confinement. These people continued to go there. Unfortunately, we cannot have this same diagnosis for all businesses. Unfortunately, we have purchases on the Net which have progressed. So we have to find, we, so-called local traders, other solutions to continue bringing shoppers to our shops and our town centers.
For example, rue Piron, rue d’Auxonne, these are traders who partner with each other to create an Instagram account, organize games, raffles, raffles. Is that the future? Does the convenience store also have to be on social networks and on the Internet?
Yes, we have to surf all modes of consumption and communication, so social networks are a big part of Shop in Dijon. When we communicate, we go through you on the radio, we go through the written press, but we go through the networks a lot and that is what is seen the most. When we organize a back-to-school clearance sale in September, in Dijon, more than 300,000 views on a Facebook page. We must not fight these new fashions. You have to surf it.
At the start of the health crisis, many Dijon traders launched click and collect, did it last?
It remains very, very, very calm at this level. There are shopping websites, we have one on Shop in Dijon for all the merchants in the city center, and it takes. It’s going to take time, but it takes. Precisely, the assizes have this stake there, to discuss, to make first a diagnosis, then to try to find solutions and perhaps to try to reform certain laws which exist in France on various subjects and, among others, the digitization.
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