Suning to open Carrefour mini stores
Suning is opening home appliance mini stores inside existing Carrefour outlets as a step to expand its offline retail channel following its acquisition of an 80 percent stake in Carrefour China.
A total of more than 200 mini stores will be operational by the end of this month and about 31 Carrefour outlets in Shanghai will have a special home appliance section owned by Suning.
Suning will leverage its merchandising advantages to target shoppers at the Carrefour stores.
Carrefour has opened 210 hypermarkets in 22 provinces since entering China in 1995, but consumer sentiment has weakened recently with the popularization of online delivery services for groceries and daily use items.
The Nanjing-headquartered appliance retailer Suning passed anti-monopoly examination and gained approval from China's State Administration for Market Regulation to acquire an 80 percent stake in French supermarket giant Carrefour China in a 4.8-billion-yuan (US$680 million) deal in late August, a key step to develop its offline retail and smart-retailing business.
China Household Electric Appliances Research Institute and the National Appliances Information Center said in a joint report that retail sales of home appliances in China during the first half went down 2.1 percent to 412.5 billion yuan, recovering from a 3.1 percent loss in the first quarter.
Online sales of home appliances picked up 4.2 percent as online and offline channels converged.
