Cmarue, the app that helps you choose your local shops, is struggling to attract professionals

Difficult to move the lines.

Five years after the launch of her Cmarue application, which gathers the opinions of residents on the type of business they need in their street, Nadia Tiourtite can testify to this.

The young woman is neither disappointed nor bitter.

Rather "disconcerted by the discrepancy between the discourse for a more sustainable city and the rental practices which do not really change", she confides.

She who saw herself establishing "a new way of marketing premises" discovered "the long time of the fabric of the city", the patience that must be deployed between consultation and the rental of a business, not to mention the pedagogy necessary to explain its co-construction approach.

Read also Paris: what if the inhabitants chose their local shops?

"Everyone is ready to involve the inhabitants in the choice of their local shops, but the passage to the act remains complicated in practice, the reluctance is still there", she underlines.

In question, the multiplicity of actors - communities, promoters, managers, investors - who want to rent a ground floor as quickly as possible to avoid commercial vacancy and loss of money.

"Many of these actors think that including the wishes of the inhabitants lengthens the time to market and that it increases management costs, but this is false", insists the entrepreneur.

In 2018, Semaest, the mixed economy company of the City of Paris specializing in commercial revitalization, launched an experiment with Cmarue which remains a success.

“Cmarue crossed the commercial wishes of the inhabitants of rue du Pré-Saint-Gervais (19th century) with the socio-economic data of the district… The application carried out a market study, scanned social networks and needs expressed to allow us to know which business to set up there, recalls Sabrina Le Bourgeois, director of communications at Semaest.

As a result of their work, the grocery store Nous antigaspi opened its first Parisian store there.

It was really there that she was supposed to settle, she is still there and the brand has even opened others since in Paris.

»

Read alsoThese stores that colonize entire streets: "Single-activity is also the history of Paris"

Today, Cmarue is in discussion with the Foncière de Watou to help it set up in its shopping mall in downtown Colmar (Haut-Rhin) businesses that precisely meet the needs of local residents.

“You have to be aware that the marketing activity is not neutral,” adds Nadia Tiourtite.

It is too often a blind spot for elected officials who need to be more careful, too many marketers rent to investors, fashion boutiques or dark stores

which are not sustainable and create warehouse districts.

»

And the head of the company proposes: "As there are companies with a mission, why not create real estate agencies with a mission, a new generation of agencies serving the general interest of a district or a city? , which take into account the social and societal impact of a business?

»