“Dark Stores”: big cities challenge Bercy

The France Urban Association requests the government’s support to better regulate and supervise the activity of these warehouses where express orders placed on the Internet are prepared.

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Actions are multiplying to stem and supervise the phenomenon of deliveries and express races in major cities. After the attempts of Paris, Lyon or Lille to use all the legal means at their disposal so that these new traders – whose warehouses (“Dark Stores”) replace traditional shops – respect the law and town planning rules , the France Urban Association, spokesperson for the twenty-two metropolises and major cities in France, has decided to contact the Ministry of Economy and Finance directly.

In a letter dated Wednesday 1 er June, Johanna Rolland, president of the association and mayor (PS) of Nantes, requests “the technical and legal support” of the government to help the Territories to “better regulate and supervise these activities”, and insist that “clear arbitrations” are made. She recalls that “the law applies to everyone, start-ups, small traders or players in large distribution”, and that “economic creativity does not suppose to free itself from respect”. She finally insists on the need to organize a great societal debate on the impact of these “ghost shops” and e-commerce in big cities. 2> “A society where we do her shopping behind a ” screen

The elected officials began to worry in the fall of 2021 of the opening in number of these mini-entreposts in the city center from which, at any time of the day, deliverers responsible for putting a tube of toothpaste or a packet of chips in record time. For their part, the “Dark Kitchens”, these kitchens where the dishes ordered online are prepared, continued to swarm. In addition to the model to which this activity refers – “a society where you do its shopping behind a screen, where the streets are more devolved to delivery people than for walkers”, sums up Camille Augey, assistant (EELV) to the employment of the mayor of Lyon -, attention was on working conditions, neighborhood nuisances and environmental impact.

The hope raised by the Assises du Commerce, organized in December 2021 by the Government, fell back like a soufflé. France Urban still awaits returns on the twenty of its proposals, including that of a taxation common to all, and that the consumer is informed of the impact of his act of online purchase. In mid-March, Bercy brought the clarification requested on the legal status of these places: it is indeed a warehouse “since [the latter] is exclusively used for delivery”. But if a window, pedestrian or other, is installed, then it is a business. A certain vagueness is therefore still maintained, estimates France urban which, in June, listed 150 Dark Stores, of which three quarters are installed in Ile-de-France.