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Carrefour is looking for new revenue models and is immediately embarking on the two trendiest: a delivery subscription service and a second-hand website. For now, these initiatives are reserved for the French home market.
Big shopping
Carrefour is launching a subscription for large deliveries in France. The service is aimed at city dwellers who regularly place online orders and, often, don’t have a car to transport large quantities. Customers can put together their shopping basket on the website and choose a delivery frequency: monthly, every two months or every three months.
The monthly shopping basket is delivered free of charge. For customers ordering over 50 euros, there is no subscription fee either, but rather, they receive a 5 per cent discount. Carrefour also promises that the prices of the selected products will remain fixed as long as the subscription is running.
However, Linéaires reports that the number of products is restricted: customers can choose between around 400 items. Everyday products – from washing powder and nappies to day cream and ink cartridges – and textiles, such as socks and tights, are available. The range will be expanded in early 2022.
Recurring revenue bundle
Delivery subscriptions are snowballing in the retail world. They are what NYU professor Scott Galloway calls ‘rundles’ or ‘recurring revenue bundles’. By offering a subscription formula, companies can ensure a steady, recurring revenue stream – which is particularly valuable in uncertain times. You can read more about it in the new edition of the book The Future of Shopping, which will be published in March 2022.
Subscribers are also among the most loyal and valuable customers. Galloway observed that those who offer rundles usually have a much higher market valuation than other companies, for instance, Netflix and Spotify. Within the food industry, Jumbo, Albert Heijn and Delhaize also started offering delivery subscriptions recently.
Second-hand with Cash Converters
At the same time, Carrefour is expanding its second-hand offer. On the home market of France, ‘Carrefour Occasion’ will get its own website, in cooperation with second-hand chain Cash Converters. Through this website, Carrefour purchases used items from consumers and resells them. Everything from household appliances to IT equipment and jewellery is accepted.
In some hypermarkets, the chain already has Carrefour Occasion corners. However, in addition to the physical corners in the hypermarkets, Carrefour Occasion commits to using this buy-back website “to give the best price for the most important items on the second-hand market”, explains Bruno Bée, CEO of Cash Converters.
When someone offers a second-hand item to Carrefour Occasion, several stores can make a bid on the item. Consumers only need to send their product to the store that offers the best price to confirm the sale. Once the product is received, it gets inspected, after which Cash Converters and Carrefour put it back on sale with a 12-month guarantee.
