Carrefour has officially opened a new food e-commerce logistics platform, located in Alnay-sous-Bois, in Paris.
The new, cutting-edge facility will supply roughly 50 Drive and pedestrian Drive outlets in the capital and greater environs by the end of this year.
This will be the retailer's first food e-commerce platform in the region. Built by property investment and development company Segro and served by logistics company STEF, the new 26,000-square-metre facility will first be operated on a manual basis and mechanised by 2019. The mechanisation process will double the number of orders that the facility can process, from 3,500 to 8,000 orders per day. Customer selection will also increase, from 13,000 to 20,000, with a pledge of 'no missing products', the company noted.
'Town Centre E-Commerce Battle'
The facility will employ 300 staff members from the STEF group by the end of 2018. The building has taken environmental and energy innovations into consideration, and the transcritical CO2 coolant production units are state of the art, according to the company. The building is highly insulated to minimise energy loss, reducing the facility's carbon footprint, decreasing costs and improving performance. It also has systems that will maximise employees' safety and comfort.
"Winning the town centre e-commerce battle is a crucial challenge for Carrefour. Thanks to this new platform, we're going to be able to supply our Drive sales outlets in the Paris region, as well as our new pedestrian Drives in the capital.
"The facility will be an additional asset for our group and will enable Carrefour to take the diversity and quality of the service offering that it delivers to its customers to a whole new level," said Alexandre Bompard, chairman and CEO of the group.
Bompard had announced during the launch of Carrefour's transformation plan in January that the group will invest €2.8 billion over the next five years in digital and omnichannel, targeting €5 billion worth of sales and a 20% share of the food e-commerce market in France by 2022.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
