In France, 11,000 independent businesses closed their doors in 2023 according to the Confederation of French Merchants. Some specialized networks, which were initially buoyed by demand during the lockdown, are now experiencing an unexpected drop in their activity.
The gardening sector, long perceived as resilient, is seeing its brands falter. This fragility contrasts with the forecasts made during the pandemic, revealing unforeseen imbalances and multiple causes behind these cascading closures.
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Why are we witnessing a wave of closures in retail, and what do they reveal about the evolution of the sector?
Behind every closed storefront, there is more than just a simple story of numbers: soaring bills, a dwindling purchasing power, and costs that gnaw at margins down to the bone. City centers, once bustling, are gradually drying up. Small businesses, whether micro or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), find themselves caught between the rise of online commerce and a competition that shows no mercy.
Fiscal constraints are tightening, rents are skyrocketing, and social charges are becoming real burdens. Banks, once partners, are now hesitant. Landlords are also reluctant to negotiate. The result: collective proceedings are piling up, revealing a fragility that many preferred to ignore. For every business that closes, there is also a dilemma regarding job retention and the ability to reinvent team management, which poses a new level of urgency.
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Take the liquidation of Intersport: it is not just a story of poorly managed accounts, but a demonstration of poorly timed strategic choices, insufficient adaptation to sector changes, and imperfect integration of digital tools into traditional commerce. This case highlights a fundamental upheaval: a surge in bankruptcies, a redistribution of roles in the market, and a questioning of historical benchmarks.
Here are the main blows hitting the sector, which explain this wave of closures:
- Continuous increase in fixed costs and inflation
- Growing disaffection for city centers
- Digital transition being carried out too slowly or incompletely
Local businesses, often tied to a family or local model, are feeling the full impact of these changes. Many did not choose this transformation; they are enduring it, sometimes leading to a sudden halt in their activity.
The gardening sector facing the storm: between the aftermath of Covid-19 and local economic upheavals
In the gardening sector, the shock is palpable. The health crisis has left behind stocks gathering dust on the shelves, cash flows on the brink, and investments postponed indefinitely. Garden centers and specialized stores, already tested by the Covid-19 pandemic, must now navigate a tense environment where every decision counts. The numbers of struggling businesses are rising sharply, indicating that the wave is affecting both rural areas and urban peripheries.
To survive, brands have no choice: they must learn to maneuver with agility, sometimes in urgency. In-store foot traffic continues to decline, the average basket size shrinks, and customers are focusing on essentials. Industry professionals are doubling their efforts to train, rethink their offerings, but margins are dwindling. Betting on technology does not prove to be an immediate solution: investment is needed, teams must be trained, and adaptation time must be accepted.
Several major difficulties are emerging for gardening players, weighing heavily on their future:
- Decreased foot traffic in specialized retail outlets
- Growing recruitment and employee retention issues
- Increased precariousness of seasonal jobs
Managing personnel is becoming a headache: how to preserve jobs while adjusting staff levels in the face of ongoing uncertainty? Agility is not decreed. It is built, day by day, in an environment where the slightest mistake is costly.
As the months go by, each falling curtain tells a unique story, but the scenario repeats itself: nothing is predetermined, and commerce, like gardening, does not bounce back with a mere snip of the shears.