28 Feb After its deal with Ocado, Monoprix plans to acquire Sarenza
Casino group (£ 31.7bn turnover in 2016) has announced in last December its partnership with the online-only UK grocer and tech provider, Ocado. Following this strategic alliance, Monoprix plans to acquire now a popular online shoe retailer from France, named Sarenza.
SARENZA, A LEADING ONLINE STORE
Sarenza is a leading online shoe retailer and stands among favorite online banners in France. It was founded in 2005 and is now active in most European countries. In eleven European countries, Sarenza has a dedicated online store, while the rest of the market gets served through Sarenza.eu.
By offering more than 650 brands and 40,000 products, Sarenza generated more than €250m of sales (before returns) during its last fiscal year. Casino, the French retail group that owns Monoprix, believes that the acquisition of Sarenza will turn Monoprix into a “truly unique omnichannel lifestyle leader” thanks to the combined forces of Sarenza’s Ecommerce expertise and Monoprix’s store and mobile experience (they launched in 2017 Monop’Easy app offering a cashless store experience to customers).
Without a doubt, this acquisition will accelerate Monoprix’s digital transformation and will simultaneously consolidate Sarenza’s future by integrating it to a large retail group.
WHAT FUTURE FOR MONOPRIX
The agreement with Ocado enables Casino to get access to Ocado’s front-end web site functionality, last-mile routing management and big data. A strategic move for both actors, who will reshuffle the cards of home delivery and food shopping in France.
In Monoprix’s urban stores, the retailer combines a food offering, a non-food offering and innovative services (such as its mobile app). It seems then perfectly logical to recreate this complete offering online as well. This is why the agreement with Ocado will reinforce Monoprix leading position on food delivery market, and Sarenza comes as the perfect addition to accelerate on Monoprix’s non-food Ecommerce branch. As a conclusion, this future acquisition highlights the energy that French retailers put to stay competitive and innovative when some UK retailers, such Marks&Spencer for example, are not planning similar acquisitions strategies.