New concept for Castorama France

The management of Castorama France was at no stage convinced by the B&Q-inspired “depot” concept, which is generally known at company headquarters as “Casto l’entrepôt” or the “advanced-format store”. Now they are going for a new store concept to help France’s leading group to achieve fresh sales growth.
The new concept is designed to ensure higher sales in the Castorama stores.
The first example of the new type will see the light of day in the south of France, at Seyne sur Mer in the neighbourhood of Toulon. An area of 12 000 m² is planned for the new store. A second test will take place during the second quarter in the course of a relocation at Henin Beaumont in the north of France. If the two test stores should prove to be effective, this new-generation concept will be transferred to the 107 outlets making up Castorama’s network of branches.
The new concept is designed to devote more space to the area of decoration, bundle the product offer by category, and offer more aggressive pricing as well. “This style of approach has hardly been pursued by Castorama so far. You see, customers don’t just expect products, but also attach importance to prices and services,” is how marketing director Romain Nouffert explains the need for change. The influence of B&Q, and of commercial director George Adams in particular, is evident in this context. However, Castorama’s decision-makers have their eye on a pricing level that is geared both to the consumer and to the competitive situation in France.
The “depot” concept, developed over two years ago, has been put back into the drawer again.
Where the subject of services is concerned, Castorama has since November been offering an installation service. Responsibility for running the service is in the hands of Maisoning, a company that specialises in domestic repair work and has a network of contractors at its disposal. Further services, including after-sales repairs, still have to be expanded. All in all the Castorama management team intends to augment the appeal of the marketing channel and consequently increase customer traffic as well.