France’s Confédération des Buralistes, the professional body representing 23,500 French tobacconists, has signed a four-year national partnership to sell postal services from Le Groupe La Poste.
The agreement is intended to provide tobacconists with the opportunity to expand their offering with a selection of services such as postage, prepaid mail and parcel drop-off, and the sale of parcel packaging and prepaid envelopes. Customers will therefore have access to essential La Poste services during a larger range of opening hours.
This four-year agreement is expected to: enable Le Groupe La Poste to improve its regional presence by drawing on the network of French tobacconists; broaden tobacconists’ range of services to attract and retain customers; increase footfall in points of sale; and give tobacconists’ customers access to key postal services during longer opening hours, in 12,000 towns and villages, in particular those with less than 3,500 residents.
This partnership is part of the ‘La Poste 2030, Committed For You’ customer satisfaction strategic plan. La Poste also intends to expand and diversify its retail network with a target of increasing the number of points of service from 35,000 to 40,000 by 2025.
Philippe Wahl, chairman and CEO of Le Groupe La Poste, said, “This new partnership reinforces the historical ties between our two major local networks. We share with tobacconists the desire to adapt to changes in society’s way of life, to improve our regional presence and be increasingly accessible to our customers.”
Philippe Coy, president of the Confédération des Buralistes, said, “This partnership is useful in the regions, in keeping with the image of tobacconists: as retailers of local utility. By becoming a La Poste point of service, tobacconists will be able to offer additional postal services in our regions, in line with the expectations of the French population. The complementarity of our two networks, tobacconists and postal operators, therefore makes perfect sense.”