Carrefour China opens biggest Asian store yet

French retailer Carrefour has opened its largest store in Asia – in Beijing.

The new Carrefour China store – Carrefour Siyuanqiao Plaza is located on the North Fourth Ring Road adjacent to a giant Ikea store. Besides the Carrefour hypermarket, the new retail facility has 80 retail tenancies, home to brands including Uniqlo, C&A, Decathlon – and a Baidu concept store.

The hypermarket has a floor area of some 71,380 sqm and stocks about 40,000 SKUs, about 15 per cent of them imported goods. The site has parking for 800 cars, 15 charging stations for electric shuttle buses and five for private electric cars.

Carrefour Siyuanqiao Plaza

Regional manager, northwest China, for Carrefour, Laurent Olszewski, said the company is focusing on imported food products.

“There has been a sea change in the food preferences of Chinese consumers. It is quite different from what I saw when I first came to China in 1995.”

Imported lines include salt from France and beef from Australia.

“Chinese consumers want to try everything,” Olszewski said.

Undeterred by China’s apparent slowdown, Carrefour China is completing a logistics centre in Tianjin in preparation for expanding its eCommerce offer. It already has 20 hypermarkets in Beijing and more in planning for other cities in China.

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