Carrefour Brasil and delivery app Rappi have entered into a partnership to sell and deliver food items.
It will offer two delivery options - express and supermarkets. Under the 'express' option, orders will be delivered within 35 minutes while 'supermarkets' will deliver within an hour.
The prices of products will be the same as in the physical stores.
New Operational Model
In the coming months, the retailer aims to introduce a new operational model, where Carrefour will be responsible for picking the orders from its dark stores and Rappi for the delivery.
The new model will improve efficiency, since the stock will be separated from the sales area of the stores, and will exclusively cater to the delivery service.
Rappi will send its shoppers to Carrefour stores and customers will have the option to talk to the shopping assistant, and ask for a photo of the goods for evaluation and replacement.
A Leading App
With more than 13 million downloads in Latin America, the Colombia-based Rappi has emerged as one of the leading service apps in the region.
In 2018, the startup increased the number of products delivered by seven times and registered a monthly growth of 20% in the seven countries where it operates. In Brazil, this number was even higher, exceeding 30%.
The alliance between Carrefour and Rappi comes at a time when other retailers are also moving to gain a share in e-commerce, and develop solutions that enable swift delivery.
GPA, formerly Rappi's exclusive partner, recently bought 100% of the local app, James Delivery.
Other Partnerships
Carrefour Brasil has also partnered with startup Zaitt to open the first 100% autonomous market in Latin America, which started operations in Itaim Bibi, a busy neighborhood of São Paulo.
As Zaitt’s strategic partner, Carrefour will be responsible for a part of the product assortment offered to customers.
The focus of the 24-hour market will be on food service, snacks, beverages, cleaning products, personal hygiene, organic, among others, including fresh and ready-to-consume products.
Using an app developed by Zaitt, customers can add products to the virtual card and make their payment before leaving the store.
The market uses RFID technology, which enables automatic product identification by means of wireless signals without the need for product-by-product scanning.
As part of its digital transformation strategy, Carrefour Brasil has also introduced the Carina virtual assistant, which aims to solve doubts and offer suggestions to customers, through voice and text channels, including WhatsApp.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
