Panier Bleu hopes lower delivery costs will make merchants more efficient in '21
Quebec's state-backed online marketplace wants to help local merchants earn more from their e-commerce sales in 2021.
Le Panier Bleu, the eight-monthold retailer directory created by the provincial government, is looking to work with shippers to cut delivery costs for Quebec businesses, chief executive Alain Dumas said.
Expensive shipping deals are a key reason why online orders are less profitable for smaller merchants than in-store sales, Dumas said in an interview. That poses a problem at a time when non-essential retail stores across Quebec are closed as the government tries to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“Here in Quebec, we often work in silos,” Dumas said this week. “Our retailers have traditionally had few internet orders. They've often dealt with shippers or logistics companies on a piecemeal basis, which means that every online order is actually quite expensive.
“It would be much better if we all teamed up to create big sales volumes. Our goal here is to help local entrepreneurs adapt to what's coming.”
E-commerce sales for Canadian retailers are on pace to hit an all-time high in 2020 as lockdown measures affect how consumers spend, Statistics Canada said in November. Retail e-commerce sales more than doubled from February to May, the federal statistics agency reported in July.
Quebec set up the Panier Bleu — French for “blue basket” — in April as a means of showcasing provincially owned merchants and bolstering retail sales during the spring lockdown. A new product catalogue — essentially a search engine that allows consumers to browse through more than 2,500 retailer databases — was added in October. It has racked up more than one million page views and drawn more than 200,000 unique visitors since its creation, Dumas said.
In an age where it's hard for smaller brands to stand out from the crowd, the Panier Bleu plays a useful role in educating Quebec shoppers about the importance of buying locally made goods, said Jean-philippe Robert, CEO of Montreal-based winter coat maker Quartz Co., whose products are listed on the site. Still, real effects can be hard to measure.
“It's good that the government is sending out a positive message about Quebec-made products, but I haven't got any actual data that allows me to say it's been a success for us,” Robert said in an interview. “The Panier Bleu is certainly not perfect.”
Other retailers “have posted very strong online sales since the Panier Bleu began,” Dumas said. “Our search engine is democratic because there's no way to get a paid reference. Pertinence is what matters. Retailers are happy because often they have trouble being visible on the web. Google is not a very democratic search tool. Quite often, retailers have to pay to be featured.”
Web giants such as Amazon and Google “aren't capturing market share because they're evil — they're capturing market share because they're extremely efficient,” stressed Dumas, who spent 29 years at grocer Sobeys before being named to his current post. “We want to help Quebec retailers become more efficient. This is what we're going to work on after the holiday break.”
With non-essential retail locations across the province closed until Jan. 11, Quebec's economy would benefit greatly if the government allowed all retailers to offer curbside pickup, Dumas said, adding his voice to a chorus of industry executives. The pandemic has highlighted growing consumer appetite for locally made goods, he said.
“Curbside pickup would give our retailers a boost,” he said. “It would also let consumers get their orders faster.”
Dumas sees the Panier Bleu as a link between Quebec merchants and the technologies that can help companies market themselves better. He's already identified some shortcomings to fix in the New Year.
“Retailers aren't necessarily used to categorizing products the right way, and we're going to put tools in place to help them,” he said. “There are a lot of technologies already available in the marketplace, but retailers are entrepreneurs. They live in their stores. They're not necessarily aware of the tools that are out there. No matter what happens after Jan. 11, we'll be there to help them.”