 Carrefour is the French word for crossroads  Based out of Levallois-Perret France  Selling both groceries and nonfood items including services as well as goods  Originators of the Hypermarket  First international retailer to enter the Asian market

 Worlds largest retail chain with over 15,000 stores worldwide employing around 495,000 employees in 2009  Worlds third largest retail chain in terms of profit and the second largest in terms of total revenue  Carrefour is a publically traded company with 3.52 billion shares  Ranked 25 in the Fortune Global 500 for 2009

 Company was founded by Marcel Fournier and Dennis Defforey  Free service was the concept they chose for their new store  The first Carrefour opened in 1957 in the French city of Annecy  Beating the competition with a basement opening

 The first hypermarket was opened on the outskirts of Paris in 1963  Combination of a supermarket and a department store  Must have at least 150,000 square feet of floor space  35% of the floor space must be used to sell nonfood goods  Today Carrefour operates over 200 hypermarkets in France alone with over 1,200 worldwide

 Hypermarket  Supermarket  Department store  Discount store  Convenient store

Strength  Strong brand awareness  Focus on competitive prices Weakness  Lack of a deep perception of the consumer behavior  Deterioration relationship with local suppliers

Opportunity  Supply more types of stores in areas where it already has hypermarkets  EEU reveals a steady potential of sales for Carrefour

Threat  Legislation requires the food wholesalers to offer the same prices to all the retailers promulgated by France government  Powerful retailers in E-commerce industry

Overview

Global Comparison of Tesco, Wal-Mart, & Carrefour

Second priority: G4 countries (Belgium, Italy, Spain, & France) Overview First Priority: France Third Priority: New merging countries

7.5%

 Success Model of Carrefour Virtuous Cycle

Failures  Reason in the US: fierce competition  Reason in Hong Kong: localized laws and competition  Reason in South Korea: consumer behavior

FoundedFounderHeadquartersProductsRevenueEmployees Carrefour Annecy, French 1957 Marcel Fournier Denis Defforey Jacques Defforey Levallois- Perret, France Discount, grocery and convenience stores, cash and carry, hypermarkets US$ billion (2009) over 495,000 (2009) Wal-Mart Rogers, Arkansas, U.S. (1962) Sam Walton Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S. Discount Stores, Supercenters, Neighborhood US$ billion (2009) 2,100,000 (2009) Tesco East London(1919) Jack Cohen Cheshunt, United Kingdom Groceries, consumer goods, financial services, telecoms US$ billion (February 2010) 440,000 (2009) Casino1898 Geoffroy Guichardin Saint-Étienne, France Discount, grocery and convenience stores, cash and carry, hypermarkets US$42.91 billion (2009) 152,380 (2009)

Retail Industry

Future Trend  Reduce price and strengthen process efficiently  E-commerce and online retailing(non-shop): presents about 2.7% of total retail industry revenue  Small single-store and independent retailers are forced out of the markets  Product cycles get shorter

Global Issues  2007 Credit Crunch  Government regulations  Cross-cultural risk, country risk, currency risk and commercial risk  Food security

Short-term Recommendations  Giving Back to the Community  Improved Employee Moral  Using Products Made Locally

Long-term Recommendations  In-depth research before entry  Invest more to build the brand recognition  Enhance its perception of the market and the customers’ demand for their products

 Small profits but high volume strategy is selectively applicable.  Carrefour frequently failed during expansion, especially in developed countries.  The ability to collaboration is imperative.  The final way to success is to establish a good relationship with employees and outer entities.