Doug Stephens

Carrefour Looks to Reinvent the Hypermarket

August 30, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Carrefour is testing a new hypermarket concept as Western Europeans buy groceries closer to home or head to department and specialty stores for apparel and beauty products. Do large-format superstores in the U.S. face similar challenges to Carrefour's hypermarkets in Europe?      [more...]

It would appear that Carrefour has rightly identified some key demographic and social trends that will undoubtedly shape consumption over the next few decades.

What I think Carrefour and others will still have to adapt to is that it will take multiple store formats and retail approaches to tap the same market share. Consumers and their lifestyles are simply becoming increasingly diverse and harder to broadly segment. One size will no longer fit all when it comes to retail concepts.