The pandemic was only the starting point of this long-term collaboration. The Thionville Solidarity Initiative created in November 2020 by two 29-year-old Thionville women, Julie-Anne Kuhn and Héléna Genty, consists of the creation of a support chain that uses social networks as supports. The idea is to allow downtown businesses to join a community of Internet users in order to gain visibility through the dissemination of updated data. Many merchants have already joined this free network which surfs on Instagram and Facebook. and to which the Yabe “100%” local conversational e-commerce platform has just joined. “We share the same values and it was natural to act together for local commerce in Thionville”, indicates Antoine Berghen, one of the co-founders with Cyrille Derouaz and Anthony Franchetto of the start-up already established in Luxembourg, Nancy, Rennes and Metz.
–
How it works ?
“Yabe works like a messaging system, with geolocation in addition: the consumer formulates his request on the yabe.co platform , the traders around make proposals. The customer chooses the one that best corresponds to his research and only has to come and collect his product in the store, ”explains the young entrepreneur from Thionville. Unlike buying online, it is not the buyer who looks for his product, compares the prices, takes the steps, but “it is the sellers who work for him”, adds Antoine Berghen.
–
A new way to consume
Behind a “simple and efficient” use of chat store, the idea is to participate in making (re) discover the local offer “much richer than we think” and thus (re) energize the city center and boost the local economy. “We think we save time by buying on e-commerce sites, when in reality, we spend hours looking, and once delivered, it’s not the right size, the right color. You must then print a return slip and send everything back. Yabe saves time for traders and customers, while recreating social ties, ”defends its creator. Since its launch in the fall, Yabe has processed 450 requests and expects 90,000 at the end of 2021, thanks in particular to its imminent establishment in five new cities in the Grand Est.
–
