Carrefour opens biggest Asian store in Beijing

French retailer Carrefour has opened its 20th Beijing store, which is its largest store in Asia and its first property self-built stores in China.Located on the North Fourth Ring Road in Beijing adjacent to Swedish home-furnishing retailer Ikea, the entire hypermarket is spread over an area of 71,380 square meters and houses 80 retail tenancies including Uniqlo, C&A, Decathlon, Watsons, and a Baidu concept store.Spanning approximately 11,534 square meters, the two-story outlet will focus on imported food products, providing more than 40,000 products, of which more than 6,000 are imported.It claims to be the largest import commodity Carrefour stores in China.“There has been a sea change in the food preferences of Chinese consumer,” said Laurent Olszewski, regional manager for the North-West China region at Carrefour.“Chinese consumers want to try everything,”The new Beijing outlet is also the brand’s first "green flagship store" in China, which provides 800 free parking spaces, 15 electric charging stations for shuttle buses, and five underground charging stations for private electric cars.Expanding its e-commerce business is also a main focus in 2016 for Carrefour since its logistics centre in Tianjin is set to complete next year.The retailer started introducing its convenience store Easy Carrefour in Shanghai since last year.