Métro, boulot, brico

"Bonjour!" Every customer is greeted personally and in a friendly way at the entrance. Are we in the countryside, in the province, where the world is still intact? In a small corner shop? No, we're stepping into a 6 400m² large DIY store over three floors in the middle of Paris, the bustling two and a half million French metropolis.
"We call them 'Welcomeuse'", explains Marie Dominique Marguery.  She's the store manager of the second inner city Leroy Merlin store which opened in the French capital last year. The on-duty "Welcomeuse", a young woman, speaks to every customer who enters the store in the Avenue Daumesnil in the 12th arrondissement. More often than not, she can answer the first questions or at least point people in the right direction on the other side of the store - to the pick-up point, where the urban customers can collect their pre- or Internet ordered goods.The concept that the French market leader practices here can be described as meeting the specific needs of the customers in this particular catchment area. Setting up shop here in the city centre is new ground for the company, which normally operates big boxes in green-field developments.
That is to say: it was new ground. Daumesnil is already the second Leroy Merlin store in Paris, "intra muros", i.e. in the urban area. The first store was opened by the company 14 years ago, directly next to the famous Centre Beaubourg, the Pompidou Centre. Since then the French market leader has been working very hard on a store concept in such an area as this.
Product range, presentation, store layout - everything is tailored to the customer, not just the typical big city dweller, but in particular those who live here in Paris. The Parisians sum up their lives in this way: métro, boulot, dodo - metro, job, sleep. Leroy Merlin wants to add another dimension to this triangle: brico, do-it-yourself.The very normal big city madness actually provides a solid platform for the DIY business. Living space is extremely expensive (a buyer has to fork out € 10 000 per square metre), and that's why the apartments are small (an average of just 40 m²) and the residents need solutions to save space and still live stylishly.
The building stock is old (40 per cent of the apartments were built pre 1948); hence not only is the energy insulation mostly bad, but also the noise insulation; both of which urgently require solutions.
The fact that driving and parking are traditionally an absolute nightmare in Paris and that in the…