Suning.com to open home appliance zone in Carrefour stores

E-commerce giant Suning.com will open more than 200 outlets that sell home appliances at Carrefour stores in China on Sept 28 after the company received the green light to acquire the Chinese unit from the French retailer at the end of last month.

The new home appliance zone at the Carrefour stores will have a store-in-the store format and selected merchandise based on surveys of consumer groups.

The move is considered as an effort for the e-commerce giant to expand its presence offline. Suning has accelerated its development in Omni channel distributions. It has about 13,000 offline stores nationwide.

According to the China Home Appliance Industry Half Year report, Suning takes up 22.4 percent of retail market shares in the home appliance category, ranking first in the country. Carrefour Group in June said it had agreed to sell an 80 percent equity interest in Carrefour China to Suning.com for 4.8 billion yuan ($698.8 million) in cash.

The transaction values 100 percent of Carrefour China at an equity value of 6 billion yuan. Carrefour Group will retain a 20 percent stake in the business and two seats out of seven on Carrefour China's Supervisory Board.