Auchan has inked with SberMarket — a delivery service owned by Sber, the state-controlled financial and digital giant — a “strategic cooperation” agreement in the field of e-commerce. The agreement will be in force until 2028, according to a Sber press-release.
The partnership aims to “accelerate the development of Auchan’s ‘phygital’ commerce in Russia. The parties also intend to “strengthen [their respective] positions on the food retail market.”
The areas of cooperation will or already include:
- A joint e-commerce service (involving both food and non food products);
- Jointly developed dark stores (starting from 2022);
- Joint marketing campaigns;
- Deliveries to B2B customers, including a dedicated loyalty program (starting from 2022);
- A white-label Auchan e-commerce site run by SberMarket.
Auchan and Atac outlets also expect that SberMarket’s support will help them attain their sales KPIs. To enhance customer interaction, SberMarket will help “introduce a service for efficient order assembly and delivery.” SberMarket will use dedicated cash lines where items will simply be QR-scanned.
“Auchan is actively developing on the Russian market with e-commerce being one of the priority areas. In the next two years, we plan to increase the share of online sales to 20%, up from 5% today,” stated Auchan Retail Russia CEO Ivan Martinovich. “In this regard, the partnership with SberMarket is strategically important to us: thanks to their technological solutions, we will accelerate the development of the phygital model,” he added.
The French retail giant has been operating in Russia since 2002. According to Statista, Auchan earned over 223 billion rubles in 2020 (around $3.1 billion at the average exchange rate of the year), down 12% from the previous year.
