FRENCH retailer Carrefour, which opened its first high-tech store in Shanghai last month in partnership with tech giant Tencent, sees China as the ideal location to develop new methods for attracting shoppers.

More such stores were on the cards in China, including two in Shenzhen in the coming months, said Thierry Garnier, Carrefour executive director for Asia.

Europe’s largest retailer was “very positive” on the market in China, where with the help of Tencent it plans to use facial recognition technology to help make the check-out process quicker.

“We consider the Chinese market as a true laboratory that can inspire the rest of the group,” Garnier said.

The firm launched the “Carrefour Le Marche” store in the center of Shanghai on May 20, featuring functions such as cashierless checkouts supported by Tencent’s popular social media app WeChat.

“We are going to open two more “Carrefour Le Marche” stores in the coming months in Shenzhen. We are convinced this is a growth format for the future in China,” Garnier said.

The store, spread over two floors totalling 4,335 square meters – only half the size of a regular Carrefour hypermarket — is the fruit of a partnership sealed in January 2018 when Carrefour unveiled global plans to invest 2.8 billion euros (US$3.3 billion) in digital commerce by 2022.

At the time, Carrefour also announced the potential acquisition of a stake in Carrefour China by Tencent, and Yonghui, a retailer specialized in fresh food and small formats.

This investment has yet to be finalized.

For Carrefour, the partnership with Tencent is the latest step in its attempts to stem a decline in sales in China amid competition from local rivals and a buoyant online market.

Carrefour has been trying to reposition itself in China, where it makes 5 percent of group sales, having previously been overly focused on large hypermarkets.

The new store features 25,000 products mostly in food, 20 percent imported products, cosmetics and fashion products. It offers free home delivery service within 3 kilometers for any purchases in the store over 188 yuan (US$29), in-house cooking services and nine self checkouts.

Chinese shoppers will be able to create a Carrefour account before they enter the store and link it to their WeChat profile and pay with just a face scan, or use WeChat to pay online. (SD-Agencies)