Placed in judicial recovery in April 2025, the Gibert Joseph group has been experiencing logistical issues that are slowing the delivery of new books to its stores. These delays are especially problematic during the school and literary back-to-school periods, as some had predicted. The group is implementing a transformation plan that includes the closure of four stores and a "corner," as well as the loss of several dozen jobs. It is also involved in a plan for the preservation of employment (PSE) for its Parisian stores, which now show 24 job cuts after an agreement was signed last week. The chain of bookstores is also affected by a decision made by the group’s management in 2025: the outsourcing of its logistics to ID Logistics, a subcontractor of Amazon or Carrefour. This move was part of a "strategic plan 2024-2028" and involved selling the warehouse owned by Gibert Joseph in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) and transferring the activity to ID Logistics, which operates from its own infrastructure in Plessis-Pâté (Essonne). The group proposed that its logistics workers move to ID, but the distance between the two workplaces—a thirty-kilometer distance—deterred many. Beyond the extra travel time, workers were concerned about a decline in their working conditions. According to a representative of the CGT Commerce de Paris union in April 2025, during peak negotiations around this transfer, workers had agreed to work within a cultural company, in the field of bookstores, not to end up on a platform more similar to Amazon than to an independent bookstore. The sale of the Vitry infrastructure for 9.4 million euros allowed Gibert Joseph Paris to report a net profit of 5 million euros for the 2024-2025 fiscal year—the first profit recorded since 2018. However, the balance is less favorable, as only a few logistics workers from Gibert have accepted to be transferred to ID Logistics. From the union’s perspective, the "low wages" practiced and the bad reputation of the subcontractor, criticized as early as 2021 by Envoyé spécial for its working conditions in its warehouses, were raised. More recently, in late 2025, a group of twenty former employees dismissed for "serious fault" filed a case with the Marseille labor court to challenge the measures taken by ID Logistics, arguing that it was a "disguised social plan" before the closure of one of its platforms, as reported by La Marseillaise in January last year during the first hearings. According to our information, the services of ID Logistics are far from the expected results, especially on the ground: in the stores, between the aisles that would have been, in recent weeks, depopulated. As early as June 23, during a meeting of the social and economic committee (CSE) of Gibert Joseph Paris, this latter expressed concern regarding the outsourcing of logistics. Presented as "a means of increasing the processing capacity of goods and therefore increasing the turnover," it would have produced "the exact opposite." "The products ordered, whether from suppliers or via express orders, do not arrive or take an enormous amount of time and arrive drop by drop," reports a meeting minutes consulted by ActuaLitté. Contacted, Sophie Rachet, CGT syndical delegate of Gibert Joseph Paris, confirms the situation. "Today, the supply problems persist and the aisles are still as empty, especially on the side of new books and stationery, across all stores in the network. On the side of records, the supply is done directly in the stores, without going through the warehouse managed by ID Logistics: they have delays, certainly, but they are not comparable to ours." Recall that used books, initially included in the outsourcing to ID Logistics, were finally excluded from its scope in January last year, following a contract modification. For the booksellers, in the stores, these supply uncertainties lead to somewhat unpleasant situations with the customer base. "Products are on the shelves, but not indicated in the database, and vice versa," laments the syndical delegate again. "We cannot make forecasts, due to this lack of reliability: we receive orders placed 10 days ago, others dating back 2 months. For customer orders, it's not sustainable." Contacted, the management of Gibert did not respond to our questions on the supply difficulties. During the same meeting on June 23, Nicolas Vielle, general director of Financière Palidis — the holding company that controls the Gibert group — assured that the problems also stemmed from the judicial recovery procedure itself. This latter has indeed triggered negotiations with distributors (Hachette, Interforum, MDS, Sodis-UD and Dilisco), as well as the establishment of new relationships with transporters, protected from non-payment by the Gayssot law. He nevertheless admitted "delays in planning, difficulties in managing the specific flows of new books," as well as "insufficiently trained and competent teams." "The ID Logistics team seems to have been poorly trained, and few people from Gibert have followed them there, due to working conditions and distance. There is therefore a real loss of expertise, in addition to a lack of visibility," recalls Sophie Rachet. "We don't really know what's going on in the warehouse, a hundred pallets would be blocked and some are probably lost, so we have had to re-order." In June last year, the group's management already mentioned forty pallets "waiting for the group." According to our information, the IT infrastructure of ID Logistics would have also proven unsuitable for books, causing new delays. So the group's management chose to deliver the orders placed with the distributors directly to the stores, as announced during the meeting of June 23... Despite these troubles, ID Logistics must occupy a central place in the affiliation proposal that Gibert must make to independent bookstores, in order to make them "benefit from the notoriety of the Gibert brand and the strength of its new and used book catalog." With or without a supplement for the delay? Contacted, the company ID Logistics did not respond to our questions.