Carrefour China says it expects to have 10 of its new Easy convenience stores open in Shanghai by the end of this year.

The French-headquartered retailer opened its third easy store on Huangjincheng Rd, in the city’s Changning District late last month. Once the network reaches 10 in Shanghai the company will start moving into other Chinese cities.

The new 450 sqm store carries more than 4500 SKUs, a carefully selected range from its hypermarkets.

“Easy Carrefour is a signature brand of Carrefour in China and is to build the concept of neighbor community convenience store,” the company said in a statement.

“It aims to bring a convenience lifestyle to the surrounding consumers by offering an abundance of goods and quality services to meet the daily necessities of community residents.”

The retailer is also focusing on building its Carrefour Online O2O business in China.

The eCommerce front of Carrefour China, it went live in June. All goods ordered by shoppers online are delivered from hypermarket stores, ensuring 100 per cent quality and keeping the price consistent with the hypermarkets. Consumers can opt to have goods delivered, or to collect them from Easy Carrefour stores.

The company says its strategy is to continue opening hypermarkets in emerging cities in China, at the same time as building the Easy convenience store network and complementing it with an O2O offer.

“In this way, we can offer consumers diverse shopping choices.”

The newly opened Huangjincheng Easy Carrefour is next to the Gubei hypermarket of Carrefour. The Gubei store was Carrefour’s first hypermarket in Asia and one of the two origins of delivery for its eCommerce in Puxi.

“Residents in the surrounding community can not only enjoy one-stop shopping in the Carrefour hypermarket, but also have their daily life needs met in the neighboring Easy Carrefour store.

“Moreover, they can experience a new type of shopping where orders are placed online and goods are picked up by themselves offline.”