Grocery giant Carrefour, one of the world’s biggest retailers, has unveiled a shopper data, personalisation and media platform designed to enhance customer insight and relationships.

Carrefour storefront

Carrefour has launched a new data and media platform for partners such as FMCG companies

The platform, Carrefour Links, is at the heart of a “new retail data and media strategy”, as the retailer aims to grab a bigger slice of the media market.

It represents “a turning point” in Carrefour’s transformation, according to group director of data, ecommerce and digital transformation Elodie Perthuisot.

Carrefour Links aims to deliver experiences to customers “more relevant to their needs, both in-store and online” and drawing upon “the largest data lake in Europe”.

Carrefour said the retail media market is worth an estimated €30bn (£25.8bn) worldwide. Its retail media business generated growth of 50% last year in France.

Woman shopping at Carrefour fridge aisle

The initiative is the latest in a €2.8bn investment programme begun in 2018 to put data and technology at the heart of Carrefour’s operations.

Perthuisot said that Links would enable Carrefour’s business partners, such as FMCG companies, advertisers and other retailers to do four things: find new customers; improve conversion; maintain relationships with customers; and understand performance.

Companies that use Links will be able to benefit from Carrefour’s first-party data by, for instance, providing personalised recommendations to shoppers based upon their interests and buying habits, as ecommerce giants such as Amazon do, but based upon behaviour across all buying channels. Perthuisot maintained that Carrefour would be “the Netflix of food products”.

Carrefour created the Links platform in collaboration with technology partners Google, which provides the retailer with cloud computing services; retail media solutions specialist Criteo, and data connectivity specialist LiveRamp.

Carrefour’s venture follows similar initiatives by other retailers, such as Walmart Connect which aims to “connect brands more meaningfully in customers’ everyday lives to accelerate shared growth”, while Amazon’s advertising business provides a range of promotional and product discovery services.