Reading inside supermarkets… another crisis trend?

Yesterday I witnessed a surprising phenomenon which I would categorize as a growing trend during the financial crisis. While looking for wedding cards at Auchan in La Defense (Paris), I noticed that many people were reading the newspapers from the shelves inside the supermarket, like in a library. There were around 30 people with newspapers and magazines, immersed in the articles’ content, lying on the floor, on garden supplies, on suitcases. I saw a mother& daughter team, each with a glossy magazine in hand, commenting Angelina Jolie’s latest pregnancy. It was almost comic and surreal at the same time.

People created this environment, inside the store, found themselves comfortable places to read and enjoyed accessing information without paying for it. All this made me wonder about the future of information and printed media. Is this the effect of the financial crisis and people don’t have money [or want] to pay for information or the information became so accessible that people consider that it’s not worth paying for it anymore?

In sheer complicity with the readers, the magazine corner is placed in an isolated area of the supermarket and workers seem to ignore the fact that the store is loosing money by allowing them to read newspapers on the spot rather than buying the information. Another fragile hypothesis could be that this is a strategy to attract more buyers for other categories like food. Then, why not installing a cafeteria offering free reading? Auchan would benefit from selling coffee, tea and fresh baked croissants in a true parisian style. At the same time, this might turn some “customers” around because it wouldn’t be exciting anymore, they would loose the adventure side of the reading.

Well, while deciding who’s the final beneficiary of this activity, I might join the reading group tonight to delight myself with a generous information spree.