Carrefour is maintaining its acquisition frenzy in France along the guidelines previously outlined by chief executive Georges Plassat.

Needs to re-invest in property? Witness the purchase of more than 100 shopping malls. Could strengthen its smaller-format presence? See the absorbing of some 800 Dia discount stores.

Must catch up on ecommerce? Well, another box has been ticked with the upcoming acquisition of the Rue du Commerce general merchandise website.

The website is little-known outside France and, despite benefiting from substantial brand recognition at home, has failed to keep up with the competition.

It posted business volume of €428m in 2014, relatively flat year-on-year, despite the fast growth of the channel.

At current pace, the operation would never gain the critical size to compete with giants such as Amazon or Casino’s Cdiscount.

In fact, the gap seems to be widening between the top and medium-size players. Rival Auchan sent just that signal a few weeks ago by throwing in the towel on its Grosbill consumer electronics operation.

This naturally creates acquisition opportunities for established players such as Darty or, in our case, Carrefour.

Carrefour can offer the necessary investment, retail expertise and, last but not least, a dense network of physical stores.

To us, the latter will be the biggest benefit as the website has been trying to attract new users by installing ordering terminals scattered at French transport hubs and shopping malls. The same logic applies to Carrefour.

Development of non-food e-commerce has been under way off-radar for the past three years and, since late 2014, click-and-collect has been rolled out at hypermarkets.

By acquiring a pure-player, Carrefour can further beef up its channel expertise as well as its buying volumes on key non-food categories, while reaching new clients beyond its stores.

Carrefour will be able to operate and create synergies with an existing online specialist, a strategy that could be compared to rival Casino and its Cdiscount ecommerce operation, which began a rapid international roll-out last year.

Even so, we believe several challenges await Carrefour, notably bringing Rue du Commerce back to the black after several years of losses.

Questions will also be raised as to how this fits in vis à vis Carrefour’s own website – both in terms of price positioning and assortment – not to mention the integration of Rue du Commerce within Carrefour’s current remodelling of its supply chain. 

  • Gildas Aitamer, retail analyst at Planet Retail