Carrefour China sets the tone and launches the #facial recognition paiement with #WeChat

In exclusivity I announce that on May 20th at precisely11am18 carrefour China will officially open its latest store located in Shanghai at number 18 of the PuSongBeiLu ( 蒲松北路18号 / 天山路)

Since its soft opening I have visited the store a couple of time and clearly the store is openly modern with loads of digital screens and electronic price tags, resolutely modern assets and well executed signage in store.

The store is not an hypermarket but a good sized supermarket on 2 floors. With its rathe r limited sales area, clear choices have been made in terms of assortment: Fresh products, imported goods, condensed non food and a market place where clients can order and eat prepared meals on the spot.

The store is as, or even more modern than its main competitors like#YongHui Bravo or YongHuiSuperSpecies or even #Hema for the classical part of the store (gondolas). Even though the market has well evolved in terms of offer, I still believe that some jobs remain to be done in the offer and the fluidity for payment in order to match #YongHuiSuperSpecies shopping experience.

The store looks be born under a good star. It is located in a very fast evolving district and benefits from a dense primary zone. It has also a direct exit from the subway and has 2 floors of parking lot.

Couple of months after the strategic cooperation agreement announced between Carrefour, Yonghui et Tencent, here is a very tangible proof of the things moving forward.

To me this is not only a gimmick but clearly a strong sign. Tencent will launch for the very first time its #WeChatPay / #WeChatWallet with facial recognition in the newest Carrefour store of Tianshan.

This shows a level of trust on both sides: Tencent has chosen Carrefour stores to unveil its new technology and #CarrefourChina clearly bet on the fact that its client will massively adapt this new payement method. CarrefourChina will now on be associated to payment cutting hedge technology thanks to this bold move. Well done !

Looking forward to testing it live on Sunday!