“It’s a committed partnership” with the Galeries Lafayette/BHV stores, declares the Galeries Lafayette operations director at SGM

The opening of Shein counters in these five cities responds “to a need of our customers”, defends Olivier Klein on Wednesday on ICI Isère.

“It’s a partnership assumed on a commercial level,” said Wednesday November 5 at HERE Isère (ex-France Bleu) Olivier Klein, director of operations at Galeries Lafayette at the Société des Grands Stores (SGM), which operates the BHV, facing the upcoming arrival of Shein in its stores outside Paris.

Shein opened its first physical store in the world on Wednesday at BHV in Paris, despite administrative sanctions and the legal investigation opened for the sale of child-like sex dolls. On Wednesday evening, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez took legal action to request the blocking of the online commerce platform. In five of the seven Galeries Lafayette stores belonging to the SGM group located outside Paris (Angers, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges and Reims), Shein counters will open in the coming days.

Olivier Klein asks “dissociate things: this story of dolls is dramatic, abject and we must legislate so that it does not happen again.” But he insists “that in a physical store, this type of thing is impossible, because we are in control of the products we are going to implement”.

The Galeries Lafayette group, opposed to the installation of Shein in stores bearing its name, has ended its partnership with SGM. The seven Galeries Lafayette in the region (Grenoble, Angers, Dijon, Le Mans, Orléans, Reims, Limoges) will become BHVs. Their collaboration “will end over the next few weeks, according to a timetable currently being adjusted”according to a joint press release.

This opening of Shein counters in these five cities responds, according to Olivier Klein, “to meet a need of our customers”. “And ultimately, it’s not a bad thing to get off your couch and come and have an experience in a physical store, because that’s also the ambition: to revitalize city center commerce,” adds the Galeries Lafayette operations director at SGM.