 Bonjour et bienvenue aux Sister City Conversations Ville-Jumeil. COVID-19 required some major creativity on the part of merchants in Enfleur, France, as it did in Burlington, Vermont. Today we will hear from business people and officials in Enfleur about an innovative approach to assure that businesses could continue to operate under COVID restrictions. Welcome. Bonjour. Bienvenue encore. The COVID-19 has demanded a real creativity on the part of merchants in Enfleur, France, just like those in Burlington, Vermont. Aujourd'hui, nous nous entretenons avec les commerçants et élus en fleuré d'une approche innovante visant à achorer que les commerces puissent continuer de fonctionner malgré les restrictions liées à la pandémie. Nous avons avec nous Monsieur Brifek, expert de la destination et responsable boutique d'envis de tourisme d'enfleur. That's Monsieur Brifek, the destination expert and boutique manager at the Enfleur tourist office. Aussi, nous avons Mme Sosso, le maire adjointe de la ville de Enfleur en charge de commerce et de la ville locale. That's Mme Sosso, the deputy mayor of the city of Enfleur in charge of commerce and local life. Et aussi, nous avons M. Lefebvre, restaurant owner and manager of the Brasserie Lal-Sionne. OK. M. Lefebvre, commercial restaurateur et responsable de la Brasserie Lal-Sionne. Aussi, nous avons Richard Glech, he's a translator and a traductor with a lot of experience. Et ça c'est très important pour moi, parce que je ne parle français bien du tout. D'accord. Merci à tous et merci d'avoir accepté notre invitation aujourd'hui. OK. D'abord, Monsieur Brifek, qu'est-ce que Biproxy, a click and collect? Et comment cela profite-t-il au commerçant d'Enfleur? So, Monsieur Brifek, what is Biproxy and click and collect? And how does it benefit merchants of Enfleur? Bonsoir Burlington, tout d'abord et merci de m'accueillir. Alors Biproxy, c'est une plateforme de vente en ligne. Et le click and collect, le terme est anglais qu'utilisé, ça permet aux gens de commander en ligne, de payer directement en ligne et d'aller directement ensuite au magasin, récupérer leurs commandes. D'où le fameux click pour cliquer sur le site internet et collecte pour récupérer directement leurs commandes une fois qu'elle est prête en magasin auprès du commerçant. Alors qu'est-ce quelles sont les avantages pour les commerçants d'Enfleur? Tout d'abord, c'est une plateforme communautaire, c'est-à-dire qu'elle est ouverte à tous les commerçants du territoire de la communauté commune du pays de Enfleur Beuseville. Et de ce fait, ça leur donne un accès e-commerce, on va dire, donc sur le web, et ça leur permet justement d'avoir, de garder une proximité avec ou non les confinement qu'on peut avoir et les restrictions sanitaires et les protocol sanitaires qui sont mis en place par le gouvernement. Et de plus, ça leur donne également, c'est aussi une carte de visite numérique, c'est-à-dire que certaines personnes vont se diriger, vont regarder la plateforme et découvrir les commerces qui se trouvent sur le territoire. And I will do it in English now. Good evening, Burlington, and thank you for welcoming me. So what's Biproxy? Biproxy is an online platform, online sale platform, sorry. And the click and collect means that people go on the website, they click and choose whatever product they would like to buy, they pay online and then they will collect their order in the boutique, in the shop, in the restaurant, depending on the area of business they have chosen to click on. And what benefits does it bring to the merchants of Onfleur? First of all, it gives them an opening on e-commerce, which means that they have a new boutique and it benefits all the merchants of our territory, of the, I don't know how we translate commune, but the community of municipalities, I would say, of our territory of Onfleur-Bursville. And so it's actually still keeping online their image also. And showing that they're still available for people. And it's also a good business card, a wet business card for them, because some people go on the site and look on the, on different pages and what kind of shops are there. And then they can shop on different shops. And they all, it's only a unique basket, so they pay all their orders at the same time. And the platforms will deal with the rest after that. Excellent. Merci, Anthony. You're welcome. So, Madame Patricia Soso, we're looking at how the city of Onfleur got involved in this digital platform and how it got it up and running. So, Madame Soso, how has the community of Onfleur been involved in the implementation of this digital platform? Good evening, Burlington. The idea of a digital platform has already been, we had already started in 2018, but it really started four months ago. Last October, with the members of my commission, we met merchants and restaurateurs. During our exchanges, we realized that a lot of merchants had their different platforms. So, we thought the idea was to gather on the same and unique platform. And it was the case in other cities of our community of municipalities, as Anthony said. So, the community of municipalities reacted very, very quickly. We have, with the office of the community tourism, they chose a unique site to centralize all the merchants. This choice is fixed on Biproxy. It's a young, dynamic platform and simple use for customers and also for merchants. Merci, Eric Richard. Yeah, so briefly. So, the idea, what actually started in 2018, although it never was brought to fruition until four months ago in sort of 2020, with the pandemic where the municipality met with a lot of local merchants to see how they could help them realize there were various platforms being used and systems being used. But the core idea was to try to consolidate all of them within the Enfleur and the Cominotet Comin, which is the greater Enfleur area with the towns around it. And so, the choice of Biproxy is a specific platform that was chosen because it's a young dynamic, it's very easy to use, and for the merchants. Merci. Finalement, Monsieur Lefebvre, Christophe Lefebvre, a restaurateur, who used this platform. So, we'll ask you, how has Biproxy helped your restaurant? Did it take a while for your customers to understand and get used to the system? Good evening. So, yes, indeed. So, Biproxy first helped us to get ahead of ourselves on the net because we had offered a sale to bring, but how to make it known to our customers? So, it really was a platform that was very important for our customers to get used to the system. So, customers couldn't come to us anymore, necessarily due to the lockdown, due to the closing of our restaurants. So, Biproxy helped us to go to the people. So, in their canapé, they could see our restaurant card thanks to the Click and Collect, and by the media of the store. So, Biproxy helped us to go to the people. So, Biproxy helped us to go to the people. And by the media of Biproxy. Did it take a while? No, it was very fast. People quickly understood this Click and Collect system. It was pretty easy. People had the habit of go to Amazon, to Ikea sites. It was exactly the same principle. There was a bakery in Hong Kong, when you choose a pizza, a burger, a seafood flavor, And in total, we pay online. It's very, very simple to use and our customers have very quickly understood. Excellent. Richard, thank you. So, what happened is that the restaurant was closed due to COVID restrictions, so that people could not go to the restaurant anymore. And the restaurant was offering takeout food, but needed the exposure. And deep proxy really allowed them to have real exposure and to reach people in their homes now that people cannot come to the restaurant anymore. People adapted very fast because the platform is very similar to other type of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon or with your picking items and using the cart and then paying at the end. But it was a huge tool for the restaurant as far as gaining exposure and being able to reach their customers. Thank you. Okay. And Mr. Beufak, how many merchants have decided to take part in this program? What type of e-commerce is it? So, we're asking how many other merchants have taken advantage of the program? What kinds of businesses? Is it being used throughout the region or even throughout France? Actuellement, je pense qu'on arrive à une petite soix-centaine, donc environ soix-centes, je crois qu'on est à soix-centes, soix-centes de commerçants. Sur la plateforme, vous allez avoir des restaurateurs comme Christophe. On va trouver également des commerces de bouches, donc des bouchées, charcutiers-traiteurs, des primeurs, donc pour les fruits et légumes. On a des boulons-gigeries, patisseries, également. Là, je parle beaucoup de nourriture, mais on va aussi... On a aussi des commerçants comme des... On a... Je vais donner un exemple. La Maison du Savon de Marseille, qui est un produit vraiment spécifique à la France, le Savon de Marseille, et qui est connu un peu partout dans le monde entier. Vous allez à... Il y a des magasins de vêtements, magasins de décoration, également. On va trouver aussi des magasins qui vendent ce brevage bien spécifique à la Normandie et aux pays d'eau, ce qui est le calvado, c'est le cidre. Donc, c'est vraiment très diversifié. Et ensuite, alors, oui, il y a d'autres plateformes de ventes en ligne sur les villes aux alentours. On y trouve trouvile, on y trouve vileurs sur-mer, par exemple, les cabours. Le choix qu'a fait la communauté de communes du pays de Onfleur-Busville et la ville de Onfleur c'est d'avoir ça son côté, c'est d'avoir ça son côté, c'est d'avoir ça son côté. Ce qui fait que pour les gens, c'est très facile de retrouver tous ces commerces en ligne. Et après, effectivement, ces plateformes de ventes en ligne, elles sont en train de se développer un peu partout en France. Dernièrement, j'entendais que, par exemple, à Paris, dans la capitale, il y a une plateforme où il y a environ 800 commerçants dessus. Après, on est sur la taille de la capitale. On n'est pas sur la taille de la capitale. Après, on est sur la taille de la capitale. On n'est pas sur la taille de la ville de Onfleur. Mais, effectivement, ça se développe un peu partout en France. Moi, ma famille, qui habite dans une autre région et un autre département, il y a aussi une plateforme, une plateforme de ventes en ligne, click and collect, où ils habitent. Mes parents, étant commerçants, j'arrive à rester informé assez facilement. D'accord. En anglais? En anglais, en anglais. So, how many merchants do we have so far? I would say around 60-62. And what type of merchants do we have? Restaurants, obviously. Like, we have a good example with Christophe. Then, we have food merchants, butcher, traders, caterers, sorry. We have bakers. We have seafood. I forgot seafood in French, but we have seafood, which is typical also of a sea town. We have some specific products, like the savon de Marseille, as I was saying, that is very well known around the globe, I would say. Some clothing stores, we have some decoration stores and so on. So, it's actually a very, it's a large number of activities represented on the platform. And obviously, this type of platform is getting more and more developed in France. For example, we have Trouville-sur-Mer, Villiers-sur-Mer or Cabot, which are not very far away from Enfleur, because it's like 15, 25, and 40 minutes away from Enfleur. The very, I would say, the very smart idea that the town of Enfleur and the community of municipalities of Enfleur-Busville-Had is the platform as its own internet domain name. So, it's very easy for people to go on the platform and find the shop they're looking for. And this is getting even bigger on the French territory. As I was giving the example in Paris in the capital, we have heard of a platform of over a hundred shops on it. But it's the size of the capital. It's not the size of the town of Enfleur. But it's getting there. It's not in the French culture so far to go on the internet and click and collect. Only 44% of French people go on the internet to buy stuff. Still 56% of the French people go directly into the shops to buy merchandise. But it's getting there every year and I think COVID has brought a new way of business. And the merchants of Enfleur are very, very dynamic and they're very motivated to keep this going. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. So we are going to look at what the impact of this system is on Enfleur and its ability to survive during this very difficult time. So we have a quite important tourist guide this weekend as well as the school holidays. So we have a lot of travelers. And before reserving at our home in Enfleur, a shelter or a hotel room, they teach each other, especially in restaurants and food shops, to know if they are going to be able to do that. So we are going to look at the impact of this system on Enfleur. And so it's important. And then there are also Enfleur. They also want to limit their move and contact, so they use this platform a lot. It's easier for them to make their purchases on the same platform. After our Click & Connect has only four months. The numbers are growing very well. It is constantly increasing, It's a constant increase, so it's true that the Parisians are confined. We feel a slight decrease, but in any case, we really have hope and the future will tell us, but I think that digital is the future. A lot of young people use it and we cross our fingers so that it continues. Thank you and Richard. So as we all know, Onfleur's economy rests a lot on tourism. And with people, tourists coming to visit on weekends. Paris is only a few hours away, so Parisians come on weekend and during vacations and school breaks. So the platform has been used a lot by tourists to kind of check ahead of time what is available in terms of takeout foods and restaurants and other stores too before they come. So to get to know that there will be things available for them when they come. It's been used by local people to also is to avoid spending too much time in stores. And what was indicated before that I think I should really highlight again is that it's a centralized platform. So people do not need to go on the websites or on the sites of individual stores or merchants. They buy, it's like one big catalog and then they go and pick up in the different places, they buy and pay from one unique platform and they pay only once for everything they buy. So as far as how successful it is, it's only been four months, but it's showing good signs. It's traffic is on the way out and young people seem to really adopt it and use it. Thank you everyone, thank you, exciting. So Christophe, Monsieur Leveur, will you continue to use this platform when we return to normal life? So when do you want to continue to use this platform after the return to normal life? Yes of course, I think it's indeniable. I really think that the sale to be taken now today is part of our working system. It really brings an added value to the turnover of our restaurant and that at the length of its longevity, we will keep it for a very long time, very long time. Excellent. And thank you. Mr Leveur was very enthusiastic obviously and really wants to keep using that platform afterwards. It seems that takeout food has really become integral to the new business model so it's kind of an addition to regular operations of a restaurant and definitely part of the future for his business and his industry. Excellent. So merci à nos amis en fleurais et la comité jumelage, spécialement à Frédéric Lecompte et Pierre-Jean et Richard Blech. Merci pour la translation. Merci à tout. Et ici, il y a, est-ce qu'il y a des mots finales? Peut-être. Ah, Patricia. Monsieur Le Maire, Michel Lamar, qui vous souhaite le bonjour à Burlington et il a de vous accueillir de nouveau. On espère qu'on va tous sortir vainqueurs de cette crise et assez rapidement. Très long et on a envie de vous revoir, on a envie de voyager. Voilà. So we have the greetings of Michel Lamar, the Mayor of Van Fleur, who's hoping to be able to see us all very soon as we all can't wait until we were able to travel again and see each other again in person. J'espère. Merci. Bonsoir. Merci. Merci. Merci. Richard, perhaps you have a last word for our beloved city of Van Fleur. Of course, we send our greetings from Burlington as well. Yeah, well I want to thank everyone for taking part of this conversation. And as you may or may not know, we're hoping to have further conversations between citizens and representatives of both our cities as part of our sister city program. I want to thank you all for taking part in this conversation. And as you may or may not know, it's a conversation that is in the context of a program that we hope to perpetuate with other conversations in the future between representatives and citizens of both of us as a community. Merci. Merci. Merci. Merci. Merci pour votre accueil. Au revoir. Au revoir. Au revoir.