Carrefour is expanding its online product range by launching a new marketplace for third-party retailers.
Hosted on the Carrefour.fr site, the marketplace will feature over 100 retailers and up to 100,000 products by the end of 2020.
Available categories include grocery items, beverages, hygiene and beauty, pet supplies and childcare items.
The marketplace aims to complement the company’s offering with ranges such as organic and natural products, health products, gourmet foods and regional or local products.
Elodie Perthuisot, executive director of ecommerce and marketing for Carrefour France, said: “To meet consumer expectations, the entire Carrefour ecosystem has been undergoing a transformation over the past two years so as to promote the food transition and ensure digital solutions that will simplify daily life for all French consumers.
“With this grocery marketplace, which is the first to have such an ambitious range, our goal is to become the leading ecommerce site for our customers. This marks a new stage in the transformation of our omnichannel solutions.”
OUR VIEW: Offering a marketplace is a way to quickly expand product range without having to source new products. In 2018, Carrefour outlined its 2022 strategy to focus on “bringing eating well – healthy, fresh, organic, local food – to within everyone’s reach.”
This consists of four pillars: streamlining the company’s organisation structure, achieving productivity and competitiveness gains, creating an omnichannel ecosystem and overhauling its food offering with a focus on greater quality.
Carrefour’s approach is an example of strategic range extension as opposed to offering an “endless aisle” – rather than simply adding as many products as possible, Carrefour is curating the products it adds to ensure they are both relevant and complementary.
These vendors are then brought under the Carrefour umbrella, offering a guarantee about their quality.
The parent group of Lidl recently acquired German marketplace real.de, which features an extensive online grocery section, as it seeks to augment its online offering.
Schwarz Group said it would continue to operate the marketplace under its existing brand Kaufland with the goal of complementing its physical business. Kaufland has around 1300 branches across eight countries.
