Carrefour to focus on home market

French retailer Carrefour’s CEO will turn its focus back to its home market and prescribe tough turnaround measures that include cutting prices and fixing its troubled supercentre business. New Chief Executive Officer Lars Olofsson said his priorities were: "First, France; second, France; third, France." The WSJ reported that both Carrefour’s hypermarkets and discount stores are underperforming. Olofsson said: "The hypermarket is no longer king in the country that invented it. The hypermarket has lost its force and power of attraction. We must reinvent the hypermarket."  Olofsson said Carrefour needs to catch up with those he called the “best in class” in global retailing and some of his improvements are already standard practice among some of Carrefour’s competitors. They include: smaller stores, a new value brand, close customer knowledge through loyalty card data, more private label products and a strong online business. 

Carrefour also aims to convert all Champion supermarket stores to the Carrefour banner by the end of October 2009. Olofsson said: "The convergence of stores under the Carrefour banner is a good initiative, but we have to move faster, so we plan to complete the conversion of all Champion stores five months earlier than initially planned." 

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