Carrefour Swot Analysis Essay

Carrefour is a French multinational retailer. Its French slogan since 2012 is “Low in price, High in trust.” It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world (with 1,452 hypermarkets at the end of 2011[Report 2011]), the fourth largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue and the third in profit. Carrefour stores are distributed all over the world.

*Hypermarket: superstore combining a supermarket and a department store.

In 2007, Carrefour executes expansion to China, opening 22 hypermarkets in China. Carrefour keeps its position of the leading foreign retailer in terms of sales figures until 2008. In 2009, the first prize was taken by RT-Mart. [wiki-Carrefour]

4.3.2 Current situation

In 1995, the first Carrefour store in China

For example, which kind of local products is sold in other stores, which kind of product sells best. And then they will negotiate with suppliers to decide which kind of produce should be sold in their stores.

b) Carrefour in China cooperated with local Chinese companies and established joint venture. The Chinese company accounted for 30-45% of the shares [Carrefour intro]. What’s more, they established good relationships with local suppliers. Through the development of localization, Carrefour has a group of local experienced people. Nowadays, more than 99% of employees and 97% store managers are Chinese people. 99% of the products they sell are Chinese product.

c) Carrefour knows the habit of Chinese people and knows Chinese culture well. If Carrefour wants to keep outstanding in Chinese market, they should gain favor of local Chinese people since people of different place have different habit and culture.

For example, they sell live fishes in water tanks [Report 2011] instead of selling the dead one since Chinese people like to buy the fresh meat instead of frozen