PARIS (Reuters) – French supermarket retailer Carrefour has signed a fast home delivery service with Spanish start-up company Glovo, as Carrefour looks to deal with growing competition from the likes of Amazon and other domestic rivals.
The partnership will cover four countries – France, Spain, Italy and Argentina – and will start operating by early October at the latest. The service will aim to deliver products to customers’ homes within 30 minutes.
“With this new partnership, Glovo and Carrefour will offer a 30-minute home delivery service that complements their existing E-commerce offers and allows them to address the needs of new customers,” said Carrefour director Am’lie Oud’a-Cast’ra.
Traditional supermarkets around the world are increasingly forming deals with online partners such as Amazon and others, as increasing numbers of customers opt for home delivery services.
Carrefour’s main French rival Casino already has a partnership in place with Amazon, while Marks & Spencer has formed a joint venture with online supermarket pioneer Ocado.
Glovo, which competes with platforms such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo, said in April that it had raised 150 million euros (135.31 million pounds) of new funding.
Glovo, which was founded in 2015, booked a 90 million euro-loss on its continuing operations in 2018, according to data provided by Delivery Hero, one of its shareholders.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Bate Felix and Louise Heavens)