Although the commercial sector has been constantly evolving over recent years, it is interesting to take a look at the present situation of the Parisian commercial framework , particularly that concerning the role of chain store networks and the behaviour that they generate among the population and tradespeople.
Chain stores represent one out of five shops in the Parisian commercial system (21% of 61,000 street level businesses) and 41% of the commercial surface area available for the population (1,7million m² out of 4,2 million m²).
The way they are organised within the territory differs depending on the sector of activity they deal in. Three main locality principles are to be found in Paris: non-food shops develop in hubs, commercial services and agencies along main roads and food shops weave a complex network throughout the territory.
The setting up of chain store networks has continued to evolve over the last ten years or so but the rate of their implantation has slowed down since 2003. After increasing on an annual average of 5.2% between 2003 and 2005, this fell to 3% between 2005 and 2007 dropping to 1.3% between 2007 and 2011; the economic crisis which began in autumn 2008 partly explains the drop during this last period. Another explication is that e-commerce expanded and mobilised new modes of consumption (development of m-commerce).
The spread of selling online raises another challenge, that of the urban logistics necessary for facilitating these exchanges, consequently jobs are created linked to this new mode of consumption.