The world's second largest grocery retailer plans to update the decor, expand the food selection and streamline the checkout process
2009-05-21
Rome - Carrefour SA is planning to completely revamp its chain of 220 French hypermarkets, according to Alain Souillard, head of Carrefour Hypermarket Division, speaking during a visit to the recently renovated hypermarket in Auteuil, on the outskirts of Paris.
In a bid to improve the performance of the business unit and appeal to more cost conscious customers in its home market, the world's second largest grocery retailer, plans to: update the decor, expand the food selection and streamline the checkout process. The overhauls will be tailored by catchment area, according to IGD. Carrefour's CEO, Lars Olofsson, said recently that the company had lost of its strength in France and it was perceived as being too expensive.
Speaking during the presentation of the 2008 figures Olofsson said that its hypermarkets were underperforming and need to be retooled, "The hypermarket is no longer king in the country that invented it." The revamping of the stores is also in response to decreasing customer expenditure on non-food goods. The new store in Auteuil has reduced the non-food offering by 40 per cent and increased the range of food items, which now includes a much wider range of organic products.
Carrefour is also testing self-scanning systems in the renovated store in order to reduce check-out queues and is understood to be rolling-out self-checkouts in over half of its French hypermarkets in the next 12 months.
