A photograph of Parisian commerce post-health crisis. The survey conducted by the Parisian Urban Planning Workshop (APUR), in partnership with the City of Paris and the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was presented on Thursday January 11. It has been carried out every three years since the year 2000, from a “census taken on foot of all premises on the ground floor having a window and access from the public space”.
Successive confinements and travel restrictions, teleworking, reduction in tourist flows, riots, purchasing power crisis and wave of business failures, particularly in textiles: all these factors have impacted, over the last three years, the sector in a city where the density of facilities remains very high (28 businesses per 1,000 inhabitants) and significant employment. This area concentrates more than 185,000 salaried positions – as many as in the hotel and catering industry –, i.e. “around 20% of Parisian jobs”specifies the study.
The APUR firstly notes that the number of stores “is holding up after three difficult years”, with 60,846 businesses recorded in 2023, or 1.4% less than during its previous survey in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic. It also observes that the number of vacant premises has, in three years, increased by only 0.7 points, going from 10.2% to 10.9%, a phenomenon that the APUR attributes to Covid- 19.
Nevertheless, the Parisian commercial fabric was marked, during this period, by numerous developments emblematic of changes in consumption. Starting with a “strong increase in the number of food businesses”, illustrated by the installation of 310 new points of sale in the capital (+ 4%). These are mainly specialized businesses such as wine merchants (+61 points of sale), greengrocers (+55), pastries (+52), supermarkets (+18)… and not resulting from the expansion of the network of big brands.
New needs
The APUR also notes a “virtual stagnation in large-scale food distribution for three years”which is accompanied by a “redistribution of stores between large groups” and the development of pedestrian drives, where Parisians come to collect the groceries they have ordered on the Internet. In Paris, Casino, with its Monoprix and other Franprix, holds a 54.5% market share among major brands, ahead of Carrefour (21.2%) and Auchan (4.5%).
New needs, increased dematerialization of exchanges in services and transition to soft mobility are all phenomena which have had repercussions on Parisian commercial facilities. Result: 77 fewer bank branches out of the 1,100 present in 2020 (− 7%); 88 more walk-in medical offices or laboratories than the 2,100 existing in 2020 (+ 4%); 283 new businesses dedicated to well-being (beauty salons, nail salons, CBD, etc.), an increase of 15%. Finally, there are 39% additional stores (+ 69 businesses) selling, repairing and renting bicycles, linked to the evolution of bicycle usage in the capital, and 9% garages, dealerships and fewer gas stations. In total, 67% of Parisian households do not own a car.
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