In the space of a few years,
discount bazaars
have taken over the shopping areas bordering large and medium-sized cities in France.
Aktion, Gifi, NOZ, Stokomani, B&M, Maxi Bazar, Normal… To this already long list, we will now have to add TEDi, a German discounter which will open its first French store in Évreux next spring.
If this simple and playful name probably does not mean much to the French, it is nevertheless well known across the Rhine, where TEDi is one of the largest retailers in the discount
market
.
Created in Dortmund by the distribution giant Tengelmann (Obi, Kik...), the brand has nearly 2,700 stores in Germany and several hundred branches in ten other European countries.
The strength of TEDi: to offer thousands of items (hygiene, decoration, DIY, toys...), at just one euro.
A "
one dollar store
" with German sauce, therefore.
On the shelves, the products, mostly
Made in Asia
, change at full speed, just to keep buyers in suspense.
A sector dominated by Aktion
If TEDi intends to conquer the French market - a dozen additional openings are planned by the company by 2024 in the West and North of France - it will have to deal with serious competitors.
Starting with Aktion, voted third favorite brand of the French in 2022 by the EY Parthénon study.
With ten years of activity in France and more than 700 stores spread across the country, the Dutch chain currently dominates the French discount market.
But the cake could turn out to be hearty enough to satisfy everyone's appetites.
Discounters
, whose cumulative customer base has more than doubled in ten years, are the big winners from the polarization of consumption, also known as the “
hourglass
effect
”: at the top, a marked trend towards premiumization
,
at the bottom, a frantic race for low prices.
At a time when inflation is forcing many French people to make new choices, the bottom of the hourglass is doing well, uniting well beyond the working classes.
Read alsoDiscounters, low cost and second-hand companies are stocking up
If the
discounters
are not likely to run out of customers, they could on the other hand run out of goods.
Like Aktion, TEDi offers both products from its own sourcing and clearance items.
It is this last type of commodity that the actors fight over bitterly.
With the proliferation of
low-cost bazaars
, retailers are seeing their shopping opportunities dwindle.
The pioneer of French destocking stores NOZ has already paid the price, supply difficulties forcing it to lower the curtain of around thirty of its stores in France last year.
Competition is all the tougher in that it is not played out on the scale of a few countries, but on that of Europe as a whole.
In 2018, the British discounter B&M made a remarkable foray into France by buying Babou.
Not so long ago, the Russian hard-discount giant Mere had also run for the French market, before changing its mind.
And, umpteenth illustration of this war of the steeples, when, in the French press, the arrival of TEDi makes the headlines, in the German press, one is moved by the imminent establishment of a new Polish discounter.
As the song says (French, this time), in the discount market, we "
don't know the crisis
".