French retailer Carrefour Group and Google have agreed an e-commerce partnership, which will make groceries from Carrefour supermarkets available through Google’s French shopping website from 2019.
This strategic partnership will also make Carrefour groceries available through Google-operated systems such as the Google Assistant and Google Home, allowing consumers to order grocery deliveries to their homes using smartphones or their voice.
The two companies will also establish a new innovation lab in Paris, where software engineers from Carrefour and Google Cloud AI experts will collaborate to create new purchasing solutions for consumers.
Additionally, Google Cloud experts will help the Carrefour Group upgrade its digital operations by training approximately 1,000 Carrefour employees in new technologies, in order to support the digital transformation of the retailer.
Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour said: “I would like to thank the Google teams, both in France and the United States for this strategic partnership for our two groups.
“This alliance makes Carrefour the first partner of Google on grocery e-commerce in Europe, creating a strong bond between the two companies. It also marks an important step in the new story written by Carrefour since the announcement of the Carrefour 2022 plan.
“It allows us to accelerate our digital evolution and get a head start in deploying the omnichannel approach we want to offer our customers.”
Sébastien Missoffe, vice-president and Managing Director of Google France added: “Shoppers today are saddled with disconnected experiences through the shopping journey, which often leads to abandoned shopping carts and low customer satisfaction and loyalty.
“Customers want assistive, simple and personalised experiences that help them make decisions on what to buy, assist with easily building baskets across surfaces, and provide a seamless checkout.
“With Alexandre Bompard and his team, we wanted to explore new distribution models and e-commerce technologies to deliver simple, frictionless and deeply relevant experiences for shoppers in France.
“I’m happy we’re contributing to Carrefour’s digital transformation through the deployment of the Google Cloud Platform and G Suite’s collaboration tools.”
This agreement comes as part of a market shift towards e-commerce by French retailers, and this agreement follows the deal signed by Casino Group and Amazon in March, which gave Amazon the right to distribute groceries from Casino’s Monoprix supermarket through its Prime Now platform.
Carrefour announced earlier this year that it would invest €2.8 billion to upgrade its digital operations, with a particular focus on its e-commerce business in China in order to ward off competition from Amazon.
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