The French retail giant is investing in a diversified business in Brazil, testing the omni-channel retail strategy.
The author of this article, Thiago Romariz, original title: Carrefour, the company that brings in the most revenue in Brazil is betting on partnerships to grow Even more
Summary of Points:
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Brazil’s next “super app”: investing in product services, merchandising and digital payments, striving to be a model for omni-channel retailers, the leader in e-commerce for groceries
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The troika of growth: collaborate with Rappi, the Latin American erotic unicorn, to pilot the “Click & Retire” service to create a one-stop shopping platform One Carrefour
Even if the Latin American economy is volatile and has a lot of business difficulties, there are always some experienced “old players”, able to interpret the situation in a timely and correct manner. , survive by change.
The Carrefour Group is an example of this. The French chain retail brand entered Brazil in 1975 and is currently in full expansion. Unlike other competitors, it has never stopped investing in technology and diversified services, and has continued to develop internal initiatives and build strategic partnerships.
At present, there are more than 650 retail stores in Brazil, and the types are diverse: from small supermarkets and convenience stores to large-scale supermarkets that can be compared with Carrefour in the eyes of Brazilians, the number has exceeded 100. In 2017, on the Brazilian stock exchange listed companies, Carrefour’s Brazilian subsidiary Grupo Carrefour Brazil was on the top 20. In 2018, Carrefour earned $13.5 billion in annual revenue. According to the rankings released by the Brazilian Retail Executives Instituto and the Administration Instituto Foundation on the 22nd of this month, Carrefour ranked first in revenue in 2018, followed by Brazil’s largest department store. Group GPA (Grupo Po de Aúcar) ($12.9 billion), Brazilian retail giant , Furniture Appliance Retailer Via Varejo ($7.3 billion) and Wal-Mart ($5.5 billion).
Behind this dazzling performance, what is hidden is that Carrefour has adapted to Brazilian consumers’ buying habits and made a series of changes to their traditional business models, such as the establishment of a “new business front” – – Carrefour Brazil e-commerce platform. Like 2018, this year Carrefour will invest approximately US$456 million in Brazil for technological innovation in its business, with three main capabilities: data, content and service capabilities (Carrefour wants to truly understand customers and launch new products accordingly) And the service); the last mile, the delivery capacity of the product (in cooperation with Latin American unicorn Rappi); digital payment capabilities (a new round of competition that retailers set around to create super-applications and capture consumer life scenarios).
“Developing Carrefour’s Brazilian e-commerce business is a model for turning Carrefour into an omni-channel retailer and a leader in groceries,” said Carrefour Group.
Building “New Carrefour” and introducing “Three Major Measures”
A series of initiatives and major technology investments introduced in 2019 have repeatedly suggested that Carrefour’s development focus has shifted to increasing consumer buying channels and creating a one-stop service platform. The three major initiatives in the past few months have been Has received much attention.
The first move was to establish a partnership with Rappi, the Latin American erotic unicorn. Rappi’s largest customer base is located in Brazil and in early 2019 announced a partnership with France’s Carrefour Group. In the first quarter alone, sales of the Carrefour e-commerce platform, including websites and mobile apps, increased by 84%. Considering the huge demand from Brazilian customers for cold drinks, Carrefour has also launched a new service this year – cold drinks are available 24 hours a day.
Carrefour’s second initiative in 2019 was to pilot the “Click & Retire” service in several cities in Brazil. Although it is very common in chain retail supermarkets in the United States, this service did not enter Brazil until recently, and was quickly adopted by Carrefour.
Carrefour said that the “Order Online, Home Delivery” service perfectly fits its omni-channel strategy and plans to include more than 100 stores in the service by the end of 2019. In addition, Carrefour also hopes to improve the coding of existing inventory goods and apply 1.9 million SKUs to its e-commerce platform management. In the context of omni-channel strategy, it is of great significance to improve the efficiency of the Group’s inventory management.
Focus on its existing diversified shopping model, Carrefour’s last move this year is to build One Carrefour and build a one-stop shop for customers.Platform. According to the company, the One Carrefour project aims to “provide a one-stop platform for group customers to integrate multiple services and access all of Carrefour’s services”. Today, more than 13 million people have registered on the My Carrefour platform.
Responding to the trend, launching virtual assistant Carina
In addition to the above initiatives, in order to promote the localization and personalization of services, Carrefour also launched the virtual assistant Carina at the beginning of last quarter, echoing the current trend of e-commerce assistants to better interact with customers.
Unlike telecommunications companies or banks, Carrefour has chosen a more mature image for its virtual assistants. Carina’s age is set to 42 years old, in addition to playing the market advertising of Carrefour, it also assumes the responsibility of voice assistants and chat bots – serving customers through the chat program on Whatsapp.
A rapid market response to the consumption characteristics of the country or region in which it is located is the basis for the success of the Carrefour Group. The effectiveness of these investments has already emerged: From April to June this year, Carrefour’s net income was $101 million, an increase of 11% over the same period last year. Total sales were $3.67 billion, an increase of 12.9% from the second quarter of 2018. Although the largest share of growth came from the operation of Atacadão (a wholesale brand), sales at Carrefour also increased by 9%. In other words, all of Carrefour’s sales models have grown overall, thanks in large part to Carrefour’s three initiatives.
Edit | Guo Chen@出海
图 | Oriental IC
