One in two French people would like more of their local shops to offer online purchases. Taken from the 18th annual franchise survey conducted by the Banque Populaire, the French Franchise Federation and Kantar, this figure is hardly surprising. Since the Covid, new consumption habits have been adopted, including in-store withdrawal. Today, 48% of franchisees offer this service. Impossible to turn back, even if, after having exploded, online commerce has lost market share. “Customers want to go to the shops again. However, brands must meet new challenges to attract customers from generation Y, born with the smartphone”, observes Pascal Malotti. The strategy director of the digital agency Valtech France takes this other lesson from the survey as proof: 28% of French people regularly make appointments on the Internet for services (hairdresser, sport, etc.), including 46% under 35 years old.
The Internet has therefore become a showcase in its own right, including for sellers of classic goods. “During the early days of e-commerce, the brand’s website was seen by franchisees as a competitor that captured sales not made in-store. Today, this is no longer the case at all”, says André Billard, head of retail and franchise markets at the Banque Populaire. Online sales are even now considered a parallel marketing network… provided that the website is working as an ally of the franchisee. “A perfumery customer visits an average of 2.5 stores. You therefore need an omnichannel vision to succeed in capturing it where it is and, above all, retaining it,” explains Stéphanie Chalard, Deputy General Manager of Beauty Success.
In these beauty salons-perfumers, franchisees are involved in sharing the value resulting from online sales when the virtual customer has filled in his loyalty card when paying – which allows him to be linked to a shop. However, this executive agrees: “It’s still too low in terms of revenue.” The brand is considering a strategy to associate its 150 or so franchise outlets with the volume of purchases made remotely. The objective: to establish a fairer distribution of the wealth created and to make the website a business provider for all the stores.
Capturing volatile customers
If it is essential to capture the volatile clientele on the Web, this mission is not enough. “Distance selling only offers the customer one aspect of the brand experience. However, what the brand wants is to bring it to live a global experience”, explains Pascal Malotti. How, for example, to taste a regional product put on sale specifically by the franchisee of a department without going to a store? When the tasting proves conclusive, the buyer often leaves with an item that he would not have thought of when ordering online. “Meeting the consumer is also an opportunity to present them with goods that are not available for delivery, such as certain chocolates that are too fragile to be shipped,” adds Juliette Oberthür, marketing and communication director for the De Neuville brand.
“In addition to potentially inflating the customer’s basket, this physical contact is essential to try to build loyalty,” adds Pascal Malotti. “The real challenge for the brand is to ensure that each buyer is both an online and in-store customer, summarizes André Billard. Ideally, filling a basket should be able to start on the Internet and continue in-store, so that the consumer has the feeling of having a single interlocutor. But if this impression is relatively easy to give for an independent, it constitutes a real challenge for franchise networks.”
Another difficulty to take into account: the reliability of the information appearing on the Net. The person who took care to inquire before recovering his goods must be able to leave with it. Otherwise, the brand risks losing it. To avoid this unfortunate outcome, De Neuville and Beauty Success offer their franchisees a tool to update opening days and hours on Google and report any changes.
Distance selling has also taken on an unsuspected boom in the field of real estate. Gone are the days when buyers walked through the door of an agency. Today, they begin their research remotely, by consulting specialized sites or those of brands located in the targeted area. During the health crisis, the phenomenon accelerated further. “Unable to travel, the buyers took virtual tours using videoconferencing tools and even signed compromises using secure software,” says Jean-Luc Jegard, Nestenn multi-franchise ambassador.
Answer questions on social networks
To stay at the forefront of innovation, this brand is constantly on the lookout. The proof: every year, in November, its franchisees go to the New Technologies Fair in Paris. “Digitalization for digitalization’s sake has no interest. It has to be useful to the consumer and beneficial to franchisees”, nuance André Billard. The banker is skeptical about the advantage of screens installed in the window or on the shelves: “These devices can be very expensive without bringing sales in proportion”, he notes.
De Neuville and Beauty Success, for their part, have deemed it more relevant to help their franchisees to respond to opinions and questions posted on social networks. Because today, being a merchant is no longer just about staying behind the counter in your shop. It is to acquire the gift of ubiquity. A challenge which, again, requires solid support from the parent company. According to the 18th franchise survey, 74% of franchisees say they are assisted by their franchisor to animate their social networks. And 20% would like more help…
An article from the Franchise special issue of L’Express. On sale since March 16.