City officials in Paris were delighted by the pull-out. "The dark stores are over," said deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, evoking their "predatory capitalistic behaviour".

... city planners said the model threatened to drain life from the public space and create a society of home-bound consumers.

But after complaints ... and fears of unfair competition

I mean, really, it sounds like they simply didn't want these businesses there at all, no matter what.

Now, consumers don't have the service available, and traditional grocery stores won't put in any effort to provide it. It's a terrible outcome, IMO.

[–] variaatio@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

traditional grocery stores won’t put in any effort to provide it

At least where I live here in Finland, traditional retail chains are very much in the shopping delivery business. Exactly including using their vast retail stores network as their base of deliveries. However again their stores are actual stores.

The dark stores would have had choices. For example don't run a purely dark store. Run it as combined delivery base and retail store. The walk in retail might be minority of the business, but then they could say "no, we also have walk in customers. We aren't a dark store, the city mayor is free to walk in and come buy a bottle of cola from us."

[–] kilgore@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Same in Germany. The big grocery chains all deliver for a reasonable fee. Also, at least in big cities, most neighborhoods have a grocery store in walking distance for most people. Delivery becomes almost unnecessary (for the able-bodied folks)