The store provides online shopping and home delivery to capital Bucharest and surrounding areas. Online shoppers have over 10,000 products at disposal and they can have their products delivered if they spend at least RON150 and pay a RON15 delivery fee. Payments will be made exclusively through back cards.
Carrefour Romania’s commercial manager Vlad Ardeleanu said the online store has rejoiced thousands of shoppers in three months since launch, but declined to say the exact number.
“The feedback from our clients is very good and even exceeded our expectations. Sales numbers are increasing day by day (…) Romania offers several advantages which make us believe that online food retail will see accelerated growth,” said Ardeleanu, adding the advantages consist of a nearly 40% broadband penetration rate, the Internet connection speed and the penetration rate of social media and smartphones. He also said the new business model will make full use of these advantages.
Ardeleanu estimates the online food retail will exceed 1% of total food retail over the next one-two years, a level also registered in other European countries. According to Carrefour, Romania’s food retail market amounts to some EUR40 billion.
Besides developing a version for smartphones, Carrefour also wants its online store to offer clients the entire portfolio of 50,000 hypermarket products.
Carrefour Romania started to develop its online store one and a half years ago, hiring a special team run by Radu Butufei for this project.
Of retailers present on the Romanian market, the cash & carry network Metro has an online store that sells stationary, office supplies, electronics, household appliances and cleaning products, while French retailer Cora is set to launch coradrive.ro, allowing clients to shop online and then pick up their selected items from the store.