No more paperwork piling up!
Today concerned with the preservation of the environment, the players in mass distribution are hunting down waste.
Thus, more and more of them are stopping, partially or totally, the publication of their paper catalogs, which very often end up in the trash without even having been read.
The announcement by Ikea of the end of its paper catalog had caused a stir, the Swedish catalog being among the most read in the world with 200 million copies in 32 different languages.
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Latest announcement, that of the French giant Carrefour.
The distributor has decided to stop the unaddressed distribution of its paper catalogs for its stores in the cities of Paris and Lyon from January 18.
In other words, Carrefour will stop mailing catalogs to any consumer who has not explicitly requested to receive them in paper form.
A decision far from anecdotal when the group had previously achieved an annual print run of 19 million copies.
“
About 40% of our catalogs go straight to the trash without ever having been opened,
” explains the group.
At the same time, Carrefour will offer consumers alternative digital solutions.
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Carrefour has already been testing this device since June 28 in four of its stores - located in Lille, Soyaux (Charente), Lons-le-Saunier (Jura), Rognac (Bouches-du-Rhône). Customers who frequent these stores were invited to indicate on a dedicated site (or directly in store) whether they preferred to receive a catalog in paper format or in digital format - available via several digital formats: by email, on YouTube, via WhatsApp, etc. - or if they even preferred not to receive a catalog at all.
The responses of consumers are particularly instructive because they illustrate significant regional differences in the appropriation of digital media.
In Lille, 88% of respondents who asked to receive a catalog expressed a preference for digital media, and 12% in paper format.
On the contrary, in Soyaux, they were 66% to request a paper format.
This example thus shows the opposition between, on the one hand, an urban France where digital technology has become firmly established, and on the other, a more rural France, far from being fully digital.