“It happened to us, during price negotiations, to propose to distributors to finance a promotion with an 80% discount on the second product purchased, and to see us answer that it was not enough, because they had received other offers. more aggressive on the part of large industrial groups, such as the second free product, explain the co-founders of Heritage, an SME bringing together eight brands specializing in maintenance (O’Cedar, Vigor, Décap Four, etc.). When we sell the second product at – 80%, we lose money. »
This is why Daniel Chassagnon and Richard Lerosey are in favor of the plan to extend the framework for promotions to hygiene, drugstore and perfumery products contained in a bill “aiming to secure the supply of French people with mass consumption”, currently being drafted by Parliament.
After adoption of the text by the National Assembly on January 18, the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee introduced, on February 8, a provision capping promotions in these categories at 34% in value and 25% in volume, as for food products.
“Limit overbidding”
The two founders also co-signed, on February 9, in The echoes, a forum of forty managers of SMEs and mid-cap companies of the drugstore, perfumery, hygiene sector, calling on the senators, who will seize the text on February 15, “to urgently limit the promotional overbidding in large retail chains” to correct the postponement of the price war on their sector.
And they challenge the reluctance of large retailers, who are alarmed by the risk of inflationary outbreaks if the text passes. Manufacturers are relying for this on a study, published Monday, February 13, by the firm Xerfi, which was commissioned by several industrial federations (beauty companies, cleaning products and detergents, toilet paper and cotton). This report considers that the capping of promotions for non-food products would have “a virtually invisible impact” on inflation, since a 1% increase in their average price would contribute “0.00239 point to general inflation”.
Difficult, in any case, when you are an SME, to fight against companies that can compensate for the shortfall by other major brands in their portfolio, according to these two former Ducros who worked for multinationals in the interview.
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