Interview
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The platform offers a new fast delivery service to any type of retailer claiming to want to help local commerce. But for the sociologist Vincent Chabault, it will above all monopolize the customer relationship and accelerate its decline.
To what extent will uberization dehumanize local commerce? Earlier this week, the platform launched Uber Direct, a fast delivery service for merchants. The company, which already has more than 25,000 restaurant customers of its Uber Eats service, wants to go even further. With this new solution, it opens up to bookstores, pharmacies and all types of retail stores to enable them to send packages to the consumer in 30 minutes.
The latest figures from the Federation of e-commerce and distance selling go in the direction of the company, which wishes to diversify as much as possible in order to compete with Amazon. In 2021, e-commerce thus represented more than 129 billion euros in France, an increase of 15.1% over the year. Above all, the sector now represents 14.1% of retail trade and the number of e-commerce sites has increased by 11% in one year. It is therefore to be expected that any SME will have its own in the years to come.
Sociologist at the University of Paris and author in 2020 of a Store praise. Against Amazonization (Gallimard), Vincent Chabault believes that e-commerce will not go so far as to completely supplant…