Carrefour Throwing In The Towel In The Region?

[st11x]

Here's the source.

After Rimping, for the other stuffs, it's my go-to place. Lotus and Big C just feels "cheap".

Here's hoping it's Target next.

Matt

[gotlost]

Hate to hear this. I agree Carrefour is our number one store and only use Big C in an emergency. LT is not in the equation.

[FarangBuddha]

Hate to hear this. I agree Carrefour is our number one store and only use Big C in an emergency. LT is not in the equation.

This has been floating around in the business press for a couple months now...I guess not it's confirmed. It is a sale so the stores will still be there...but probably won't stock all that expensive French cheese and butter anymore, however.

No big loss...in Patts, we've still got Foodland, Villa, Tops, and Central Marketplace for all our fancy food needs.

[harrry]

This will leave a hole in the market. The Singapore store mayhardly be worth shopping in but they have some good stock in Thailand despite their couldn't care less service.

[bkkjames]

IMO while better than the UK one and the other French one, when it entered the Thai market they were trying to aim high with lots of foreign imported goods, high quality products. But the market for these products was too small when one considers that many of their stores are located in Thai dominated areas that aren't exactly the market for selling premium food items from France.

Then over time they got rid of a lot of this and tried to keep up with the aforementioned on price / volume which they couldn't.

TOPs, Villa Foodland for the mid - premium market

BigC, TL for the  lower end market.

[thaimate]

No great loss,i find them vastly overpriced ,bad fruit and dirty . hope whoever takes over does a better job.

[Jingthing]

Won't miss them one bit! Did like the roller skating price checkers though, when I USED to shop there.

[jackr]

I agree Carrefour is our number one store and only use Big C in an emergency. LT is not in the equation.

None of them are in my equation unless buying bog roll and bin liners.

[Heng]

I wonder who will end up with the Pattaya Carrefour? Already have 2 1/2 Tescos and 2 Big C's in town.

[gotlost]

I wonder who will end up with the Pattaya Carrefour? Already have 2 1/2 Tescos and 2 Big C's in town.

WALMART is coming.

[FarangBuddha]

Won't miss them one bit! Did like the roller skating price checkers though, when I USED to shop there.

They have some nice European breads they make in their bakery...expensive but good. Good baguettes as well...I will miss those!

[moe666]

In April did some comparison shopping at the TL and Carrefor at Onnut the TL had better prices and better selection, did the buying at TL.

[wimpy]

I will very much miss their reasonably priced Carrefour brand cheeses, their frozen pizzas, their country sour bread, and their baguettes. They also have the best deal on quality salmon. The salmon at TL and Big C looks sad by comparison. It is a shame.

[surayu]

last time i was there (BKK), they had lots of expired products on the shelf (mostly cheese), i was wondering why they don't do any sort of discounts on products before they reach their expiration dates, is it a management problem or the order came from the top level? also the printed paper expiry date sticked on top of all the plastic ham/salami/etc sealed bags was really looking like a (scary) attempt to sell out of date stocks, but i hope i am wrong on this....and i declined my purchase to be on the safe side, it would be sad to see Carrefour going, but they need to improve things a bit....

[wimpy]

The Carrefours I visited in Bangkok looked shabby compared to the Chiang Mai store.

[Hawk]

No great loss,i find them vastly overpriced ,bad fruit and dirty . hope whoever takes over does a better job.

Not a good store at all, last time I went, most of their fruit was well past its sell by date, and management weren't so nice either, staff seemed very indifferent, the old "take it or leave it" attitude.

[avcomth]

Just a little off topic. But anybody living on or near Ratchadaphisek road here in BKK? It's amazing how there's this retail madness; Lotus at the start of the road, Esplanade (with Tops supermarket) Jusco (Japanese), Carrefour, Robinson (with Tops again) all smacked right against one another, and now they're building yet another Central plaza right at the intersection. If anybody ever need to do any kind of shopping that involved getting stuff from multiple stores, this is truely the area to visit. (Apart from going to massage parlors for other stuffs...)

Edited July 6, 2010 by avcomth

[SiangDeeMahk]

In April did some comparison shopping at the TL and Carrefor at Onnut the TL had better prices and better selection, did the buying at TL.

Hmmm.. I've been living in the On Nut area for one and a half years (I'm back visiting the States for the summer right now), but I've had the opportunity to get a pretty good feel for what the 2 stores (at On Nut) sold (had available), and for how much.

My (and my girlfriend's) consensus was that CarreFour actually had more products and a wider range of items (which is to be expected; it's physically larger than TL, with 2 enormous floors of merchandise), but except for the deepest, hugest sale specials, was consistently more expensive than TL.

We would routinely go shopping at TL, then, just swing by CF to try to pick up something that TL simply didn't have.

I'm no so sorry to see it go, but I did love the end-of-the-day sushi closeouts, and (at least at On Nut), the mini flea market that had sprung up in part of the indoor parking lot. :-p

Also, the Thais are MUCH cuter when they mangle Tesco Lotus into "Tetz-ah-goh Roh-daht", than when they say CarreFour (because CarreFour still comes out as "Gaah Fauh").

[tartempion]

Carrefour management have proved their incompetence in running hypermarchés outside of France.

Seems they do not master Un-French marketing.

See the debacle with the purchase of Belgian GB hyper-supermarket chain.

In Udon Thani they repeated their stupidity, a badly designed useless hypermarket.

BTW, Tesco-Lotus made the same error by building yet an other store out of town near the airport, the place is void of customers and I continue to shop at the old TL.

And please don't claim decent French baguettes or croissants can be found anywhere in Thailand.

We just returned from a 3 weeks trip to France and only there ANY bakery will sell you GOOD croissants/baguettes. Forget Thailand/Vietnam etc.

[tracer5050]

Someone will move in. maybe walmart LOL. They always look for cheap help.

[t.s]

lived in bangkok since 96, never set foot in a carrefour.

[jfchandler]

I too routinely shop at both the Tesco and CF stores at On Nut.... and I'm not sure the claim that Tesco is always cheaper is correct.

Some things are stocked at CF that either Tesco simply doesn't have, or has but not in good condition. For example, Tesco has little or no beef, whereas CF has at least some. Likewise, CF has a better and fresher selection of fresh vegetables. I'd like to buy fruit and veggies at Tesco, but rarely see anything there that looks decent among the things we purchase. The other meats offered at CF likewise look fresher and better packaged and kept than at Tesco. CF also has a much larger and better selection of cooked/packaged Thai foods compared to Tesco.

I also think the prior poster's comment about the CF store at On Nut being larger and having a broader stock selection overall is correct, including that the CF store is two full stories/levels, whereas the Tesco store itself at On Nut is just one.

We tend to buy the same general set of things week to week. And I usually go to both stores at one time or the other during the week. Sometimes, for the common household things we buy, Tesco is cheaper and sometimes CF is. Often they're pretty close to the same, especially for things like packaged fruit juices, cartons of yogurt, eggs, tissues, paper towels, etc etc. But I also keep an eye on the weekly sales listings for both, because prices are always jumping around.

[dumball]

It could be the small snowball set loose at the top of a steep embankment , gathering no moss as it wends its way in a somewhat lazy and laksidaisical manner , leaving a trough of disenchantment for all to see and experience .

Fear not the fear , but the trauma in your ever busy brain , brought upon you as the mystical world of enchantment you have become accustomed to , slowly enfolds into mere dreams and memories , beware the ides of March .

[craigt3365]

I for one will really miss CF here in Pattaya. It has a decent selection of a lot of items. Kinda one stop shopping....almost. Nice to be able to go to one location with good parking to get almost all our shopping done.

Easy to get to, unlike Villa, Tops or Central Festival (at least for us living out of town). Has an OK food court, good wine selection and co-located with HomePro. Jeez, I hope Big C doesn't grab them up!

[doggie888888]

When I was in KL a year or so ago, I happened to come across a Carrefour in Mid Valley Mall...I was surprised at how busy it was and my KL friend says it's always like that. It was as if everything was free.

Now if that was extremely busy, consider this: there was a stampede in one of the Carrefour stores in China resulting in the death of a shopper...due to sheer number of shoppers rushing in to get a bargain!

Where would you focus if you owned Carrefour?

Edited July 7, 2010 by doggie888888

[lazygourmet]

Berli Jucker, the manufacturing and trading conglomerate owned by liquor tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, yesterday expressed strong interest in joining the bidding to acquire Carrefour's operations in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

The Nation

[thedistillers]

Just a little off topic. But anybody living on or near Ratchadaphisek road here in BKK? It's amazing how there's this retail madness; Lotus at the start of the road, Esplanade (with Tops supermarket) Jusco (Japanese), Carrefour, Robinson (with Tops again) all smacked right against one another, and now they're building yet another Central plaza right at the intersection. If anybody ever need to do any kind of shopping that involved getting stuff from multiple stores, this is truely the area to visit. (Apart from going to massage parlors for other stuffs...)

Jusco will be gone soon though, if I recall correctly. Which isn't surprising. And for those who've never went, the Lotus is one subway station away from Carrefour and Jusco, so they're not exactly next to each others. There's the Chinese embassy between Tesco and Esplanade.

I know we're talking about imports, but some of Carrefour's prices. There are some products it makes sense to pay the price if you miss a particular taste (like Vegemite or Marmite), but canned spaghetti or beans? Seriously? Sometimes I just laugh at some of the products and price... No one in their right mind would buy that.