OneFlash unblocks the welcome desk at METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau

Digital entry card, shopping list in an app, loyalty programme on a smartphone, contactless payment: in professional wholesale retail, the phone has become an indispensable key. A customer who arrives with a flat battery is no longer simply inconvenienced, they are quite simply blocked at the entrance to the store. That finding led the METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau warehouse, one of the largest wholesale halls in France for catering professionals, to deploy the OneFlash self-service mobile charging service. A look back at a recent partnership that shows how a well-integrated charging station transforms both the customer experience and the day-to-day work of in-store teams.

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When digitalisation makes the smartphone indispensable to the shopping journey

The digitalisation of retail has profoundly changed how customers behave in large stores. At METRO, the mobile app now centralises most of the commercial relationship: shopping lists prepared in advance, photos taken to compare products, loyalty programmes, personalised promotional offers, one-click purchases. The app brings together a multitude of uses that customers consult at every stage of their visit, which puts the smartphone at the heart of the shopping journey, as Laurent Fache Valentini, manager of the METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau warehouse, points out.

This centrality of the phone is not without drawbacks. It creates a technical dependence that can, in a second, turn a smooth journey into a complete blockage. At the warehouse welcome desk, Nathalie Zirafi, customer experience manager, sees it every day. “Customers have their card in digital form on their phone. So when they arrive at the warehouse and their battery is dead, they can't get in”, she sums up. Where a plastic card used to get you through the turnstiles without a second thought, the digital version now requires the phone to be working at that exact moment. No battery, no access. And for a professional customer who has made a special trip to stock up, the inconvenience can be enough to jeopardise the whole visit.

A battery that moves with the customer, not the other way round

To meet this very concrete operational need, METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau chose to deploy a self-service OneFlash station at the warehouse welcome desk. The principle is simple: the customer scans a QR code, borrows a pre-charged power bank fitted with the main compatible cables, and uses it throughout their visit. The power bank slips into a pocket or sits in the trolley, plugged into the phone, which carries on working normally.

It is precisely this mobility that sets the service apart from a simple wall socket. Customers can keep consulting their shopping list, scan products via the app, compare items by photo and pay without interruption. Charging stops being a restrictive pause and becomes part of the shopping journey itself. “Rather than leaving them tied to a cable plugged in in a corner, the phone charges but stays usable”, explains Laurent Fache Valentini. “It's a real game changer for the customer experience.”

An operational relief for in-store teams

Beyond the customer benefit, the deployment of the station has transformed the daily routine of the teams on site. Before it was installed, the warehouse had no charging solution at the welcome desk. Staff would occasionally agree to keep a phone behind the counter while it recovered a minimum of charge, which tied up personnel, created a risk of mix-ups between devices and exposed the brand to liability in the event of an incident.

With the self-service station, this operational grey area disappears. Customers manage their own charging, keep their device at all times and enter the warehouse without any intervention from the welcome team. The warehouse thus gains in welcome fluidity and employees can focus on tasks with higher added value for customers, which both Laurent Fache Valentini and Nathalie Zirafi present as one of the most immediate benefits of the system.

A station customised in the store's colours

One of the strengths of the OneFlash solution is the ability to customise the station visually so that it blends naturally into the store's identity. At METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau, the wrap uses the brand's graphic codes, namely the blue, yellow and white that structure all of the site's signage. The station thus becomes a genuine part of the retail decor rather than a piece of technical equipment parachuted into the welcome area, and the customer experience team sees it as a natural extension of the store's visual world.

This customisation turns the station into a visual brand touchpoint. Throughout their visit, customers hold a power bank in METRO colours, which extends exposure to the brand well beyond the checkout. For operators concerned with visual consistency and brand recall, this level of integration is a differentiator that standard technical equipment installed in large stores rarely allows.

A differentiating service in an increasingly standardised market

For Laurent Fache Valentini, the value of the system goes beyond solving a practical problem. It is part of an overall customer experience approach that lastingly sets the Les Pennes Mirabeau site apart from other professional retailers. “It's a differentiator today to be able to come and offer OneFlash. It's not everywhere, and it brings something extra to the customer experience.”

In professional wholesale retail, where customers compare retailers mainly on range and price, the in-store experience is becoming an ever more decisive loyalty factor. A smooth charging service, built into the journey and the site's branding, helps strengthen customer preference for a particular point of sale within a network that has many.

A turnkey deployment and a long-term partnership

The effectiveness of an in-store mobile charging service does not depend on hardware quality alone. It depends just as much on how smoothly it is deployed and how solid the support is over time. On this point, the feedback is unambiguous. The installation was managed entirely by the OneFlash teams, who also trained the warehouse staff in day-to-day use and monitoring of the system. The prior presence of the service in several other METRO warehouses in France also served as a reassuring reference when making the choice, confirming the operator's ability to keep its commitments over time and across a network of stores.

This partnership logic corresponds precisely to what large operators expect. Where some providers simply deliver a piece of equipment, OneFlash handles deployment, follow-up, maintenance and user after-sales support across the whole life cycle of the system. For METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau, this continuity is essential: it guarantees that the service will keep its promises over time, with no gradual deterioration in the customer experience.

Mobile charging, a new standard for the in-store experience

The OneFlash deployment at the METRO Les Pennes Mirabeau warehouse illustrates a structural shift in retail. As digitalisation turns the entry card, the loyalty programme, the shopping list and even the means of payment into smartphone-dependent apps, battery life becomes a critical factor in the customer journey. Answering it with a well-thought-out charging service, built into the branding and easy to operate, is no longer an optional comfort but a genuine matter of commercial accessibility.

For store managers looking to smooth the welcome, differentiate their sites and enhance their image, the model deployed at Les Pennes Mirabeau is a useful benchmark. It shows that, with a partner able to maintain quality over time, the in-store charging station is becoming a new customer experience standard, simple to operate and immediately understood by visitors.

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