The French government wants to support dark stores
Pedestrian pick-up points in several cities, cafés inside a dark store in London... While Gorillas shows willingness to welcome the public in its warehouses, the French government is considering granting "dark stores" the status of retail businesses.
Is a dark store a retail business as soon as it houses a customer collection point? This is the idea that quick commerce start-ups, themselves supported by investment funds, want to impose. In France, this is also the path envisaged by the government, which wants to find a legal solution to the status of dark stores. There is the option of granting the status of a retail business. A consultation was launched on July 6. “Today, these firms are categorised as warehouses,” the Frenchy government told Mind Retail on Thursday, August 18. “If they open a collection point to the public [editor’s note: this is the strategy displayed by Gorillas since March] and clear their windows, they become retail businesses, this is the state of the law.”
