The food retail market in France is undergoing a complete overhaul, with Intermarché, Auchan and Carrefour taking over Casino stores.
These brand changes should boost the market share of these 3 banners, provided that each acquired store builds loyalty among its former customers, recruits new ones and makes them want to spend more, more often. This virtuous dynamic must also be sustained over time.
An ambitious goal for the point of sale, requiring it to meet a number of major operational challenges.
I/ Be ready on opening day
The first challenge is to be ready on store opening day so that customers can discover the specific features of the new brand’s offer (products, prices, service). This challenge is well on the way to being met. These three banners have mobilized dedicated task forces and developed their own personalized approach to help their stores open smoothly. They deploy the DNA of their brand, but they also take into account the DNA of the store, as in the case of the former Casino in the 13th arrondissement of Boulevard Massena in Paris, which has been taken over by Intermarché. The brand has deployed its hallmarks by rehabilitating the “Trad” offer, for example, by revitalizing the fish counter. Intermarché’s FMCG offer has also been implemented, but adapted to the specific needs of its clientele, most of whom are of Asian origin, by reinforcing the offer and shelf space in the world products section, and by maintaining dual signage in French and Chinese. For the rest, the brand’s price positioning will be applied and the checkout line will be reinforced.
II/ Mobilizing teams and defining an efficient, flexible organization for the expected increase in activity
The second challenge has yet to be met, and involves mobilizing teams and defining an efficient, flexible organization to adapt to the expected increase in business, without impairing the customer experience or the store’s appearance. The stakes are high: sales and profitability must be commensurate with the investments made.
To achieve this, the store will first need to take stock of the situation, to understand the strengths and skills of the teams that have been taken over. It also needs to know how much room for manoeuvre it has, by ensuring that the workloads of its employees are appropriate and fairly distributed, and to acquire a clear vision of the store’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of customer irritants, so as to be able to launch corrective actions, then reinvest the hours where they are needed. Finally, if there are any surplus hours left over, they can be reallocated to new services such as drive-through, LAD, etc.
Some initial feedback is available, for example from one of the 1st Casino hypermarkets (6,800 m²) taken over by the Musketeers group. In November 2023, this store deployed the Timeskipper workload management solution in the FMCG (Dry and Fresh Self-Service) sectors, which enabled it to observe that 25% of employee hours could be put to better use. The outlet was then able to launch several projects to :
- balance the workload between the two sectors by redeploying staff from the Dry sector to the LS Fresh sector,
- save time by reorganizing tasks so as to finish stocking shelves half an hour earlier to avoid inconveniencing customers and give them a better reception,
- improve customers’ perception of the store’s appearance by putting back hours on cleaning, signage and facing, and by ensuring a permanent presence in the afternoons
These projects have enabled us to reduce the number of inefficient hours by 80%, and to improve the number of parcels handled per hour by 20%.
In conclusion, this example clearly shows that there are levers to be activated by the outlet to confirm the trial. That’s why Timeskipper has developed a Flash offer dedicated to stores taken over by retailers, to help them quickly identify hours to be put to better use, assess potential for improvement in work organization, identify actions and tasks to be implemented to be more efficient, and hours to be reinvested to correct customer irritants.
If you’d like to find out more about our experience feedback and our “Flash” offer, please don’t hesitate to contact us!