Press

Black Friday has become a major event in the e-commerce industry, and Cdiscount ranks as France’s leading Black Friday e-tailer after reporting €43 million in business volumes, or five times the amount recorded on a typical day. A total of 8 million people – i.e., one in three households – visited the Cdiscount website last Friday.

This year’s sales event confirmed that Black Friday is the kick-off point for the Christmas shopping season, with toys and games comprising the bulk of items sold. Nearly 10,000 PS4 consoles and 200,000 toys/video games were purchased during the day, including hoverboards, which this year once again proved to be a stand-out item: 1,500 were sold within a few minutes after the stroke of midnight.

Customers’ enthusiasm for Black Friday was particularly visible on social media, demonstrating that French consumers have really embraced the major shopping bonanza. Cdiscount was by a very wide margin the top retailer on social media, counting some 223,000 interactions with its customers* on Friday, 24 November alone.

We are pleased to announce the signing of an agreement between Ocado Group plc (“Ocado”) and Groupe Casino, to develop the Ocado Smart Platform (“OSP”) in France.

Ocado is the world’s leading dedicated on-line grocery retailer with a strong technological advantage. The scalable, modular end-to-end solution provided by the OSP is a unique answer to the opportunities and challenges posed by shifting offline/online trends in grocery.

This highly innovative and effective commercial formula will be achieved through access to Ocado’s end-to-end solution, including the construction of its latest generation, state-of-the-art automated warehouse (for which Ocado will invest to install its grid and its robots), Ocado’s best-in-class front-end web site functionality, last-mile routing management and big data, real time implementation.

Groupe Casino’s banners will benefit from this innovative grocery e-commerce platform, firstly Monoprix.fr, which will provide its customers with the largest assortment of food items at the best levels of services and costs.

The agreement sets out plans for the immediate initiation of the development of a Customer Fulfilment Centre (“CFC”) using Ocado’s proprietary Mechanical Handling Equipment (“MHE”) to serve the Greater Paris area, the Normandie and Hauts de France Regions.The build and launch is expected to take at least two years.

In consideration of the investments made by Ocado, of maintenance and of provision of technology, Groupe Casino will pay Ocado certain upfront fees upon signing,and during the development phase, then ongoing fees linked to its utilisation of capacity within the CFC and service criteria.

In addition to the initial CFC, Groupe Casino and Ocado will consider further development of other CFCs close to other large urban areas.

“Groupe Casino is pleased to announce the agreement with Ocado Group which will allow it to develop an integrated customer and logistics platform, considered the best in the market.

At its meeting today, the Board of Directors of Casino Group declared a 2017 interim dividend of €1.56 per share.

The ex-dividend date for the 2017 interim dividend is set for Thursday 7 December 2017 and will be paid on Monday 11 December 2017.

The balance of the 2017 dividend will be submitted for approval at the Annual General Meeting that will take place on Tuesday 15 May 2018.

Cdiscount has chosen Rosapark to support its brand strategy. The objective of the partnership is to roll out a new signature and a new creative concept that will enable Cdiscount to make an emotional connection with its customers.

Having abandoned the “Butcher’s Shop” (“La Grande Boucherie”) signature last year, Cdiscount has stated its intention to build a long-term communications strategy, which will be key to ramping up its growth and consolidating its position as France’s leading multi-specialist.

The new communications strategy is driven by a new brand signature, “Don’t scrimp on pleasure”, which emphasises the element of pleasure involved in making a purchase on the Cdiscount website, putting an end to the eternal internal conflict that people have between reason and emotion.

The French e-commerce leader wants to play a bigger role in the daily lives of people across France, by increasing its closeness to customers and becoming bolder.

The new creative strategy will be rolled out over the next two months. The first 360° communications campaign – which will unveil the face of the brand through billboards, press, radio, online, social media, etc. – will be launched to coincide with Black Friday.

“Cdiscount is often perceived as a discount retailer that mainly sells hi-tech products and home appliances,” said Jean-Patrick Chiquiar, co-founder of Rosapark. “We want to change this perception and make Cdiscount the emotional leader in its category. Cdiscount is a multi-specialist and its site is packed with fabulous products in high-tech, home decoration and furnishings, childcare, sport and even wine. We have to spread the message.”