Some 140 shopping centers apply the health pass at the request of the prefect ... and therefore almost as many hypermarkets, very often in the heart of these places of commerce. The decision to impose the pass in a so-called "essential" store, until then spared by health restrictions, surprised the mass distribution sector as well as its customers. “
It concerns many more stores than expected
, wondered Jacques Creyssel, the general delegate of the Federation of commerce and distribution (FCD), a few days after the publication of the first prefectural decrees imposing the pass.
Some customers are surprised that they can no longer do their shopping as before. The incomprehension is total.
"The latter was sometimes expressed violently, as in La Trinité in the Alpes-Maritimes, where anti-pass demonstrators blocked the access to an Auchan shopping arcade to the cries of
" Auchan collabo "...
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Competition issue
For the hypermarkets concerned, the blow is severe.
The drop in turnover fluctuates between 15% and 40%, depending on the store.
“Our clients are younger and more often from the lower classes,”
notes an employee of a large property company.
They are often less vaccinated. ”
Even hypermarkets located in shopping malls not subject to the pass end up suffering.
"The rules are so complicated ... Customers have understood that, without a pass, you should no longer go shopping in a shopping arcade", we
deplore at Auchan.
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Unlike restaurant customers, hypermarket customers are spoiled for choice as to where to go shopping without a pass. The shortfall will be all the more important as the last two weeks of August are periods of high activity, when families come to do their back-to-school shopping.
"If tomorrow there are social plans in mass distribution, we should not be surprised,"
fumes an actor in the sector.
The imposition of the health pass only for hypermarkets of more than 20,000 m2 (or located in a shopping center of more than 20,000 m2) also poses a problem of competition. The distributors who have gained the most market share in recent months (Lidl, Intermarché or Système U) are not, or very little concerned, by the past, because they do not have large hypermarkets located in shopping malls - a format which has been experiencing a steady decline in attendance for several years. Conversely, Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc or Cora are more exposed. At Auchan, 60% of French turnover is generated in hypermarkets of more than 20,000 m2. Some of these players hope to obtain compensation from Bercy.
