The health crisis linked to Covid19 endured by the French during the spring of 2020 forced retail traders and consumers to adapt to the situation. A section of the latter changed their shopping habits.
The effects of the crisis touched retail sectors differently. Essential commodity outlets were able to stay open and work while shops in other sectors had to remain shut. This led to only one out of every four shops being authorised to open in Paris. In this context E-commerce came forward as an efficient solution that respected social distancing and maintained their business activity. Questioned by Apur, retailers who chose to sell their products via internet explain how they set this up.
Consumers, for their part, had to change their purchasing behaviour faced with the health restrictions and development of delivery services. For some, this period was an opportunity to shop online for the first time. In order to understand how the Greater Paris - Grand Paris - population reacted to the new commercial services, Apur sent them an online questionnaire during the month of May 2020.
The disruption of the crisis naturally led to a rapid reorganisation of urban logistics, which managed to address the new difficulties of transporting products in the metropole. In the future, these practices could have a lasting effect on metropolitan logistics. 12% of consumers have already indicated that following this period they will shop online more often.
A few weeks further into post lockdown, it seemed that consumers had returned to their old consumption habits, but online commerce has shown its strength during a time of crisis and seems to have gained a long lasting part of the market and the confidence of the French people.
