Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

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jamcool
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Re: Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

Post by jamcool »

Except CoucheTard is not a great store operator, their stores are mediocre at best, their fuel is poor quality and they can’t complete with the strong regional chains like QT, WaWa, Sheetz, or Maverik.
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Re: Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: January 17th, 2021, 7:47 am Except CoucheTard is not a great store operator, their stores are mediocre at best, their fuel is poor quality and they can’t complete with the strong regional chains like QT, WaWa, Sheetz, or Maverik.
Couche Tard is a discount operator and they know it. They know their 30-40 year old Circle K Stores are generally inferior to the regional chains with larger stores. Circle K's new build stores are very nice however they don't seem to necessarily be maintained very well. Circle K does have a good mix of products in its stores; their mix of items is much more extensive than 7-Eleven (I am talking items like candy, packaged snacks). The brewed iced tea Circle K sells, where they sell it (not in CA... some have it down in Las Vegas and in AZ), is excellent, IF you are comfortable purchasing it after observing the cleanliness of the location and equipment.

Have been to many Quik Trips over the years and have never walked in and observed conditions that made me uncomfortable purchasing something made in or dispensed from the location. Same for Sheetz and Wawa though I have been to a lot fewer of those. Maverik... needs to invest more in store labor and IT to get up to the level of a QT, Wawa, or Sheetz and their store staff needs some serious training in working quickly and efficiently at the register- their checkout process is so slow it feels like a department store and their pay at the pump is a total fiasco with too many questions and then a weird 10 second delay to turn the pump on after the card process has already shown as approved.
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Re: Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

Post by klkla »

mjhale wrote: January 14th, 2021, 6:35 pm What in the world would a convenience store operator want with Carrefour? The article says that Carrefour has some convenience store operations. But the bulk of Carrefour's operations are its hypermarts. Seems incompatible to me.
Sometimes I have to travel to Brazil for work and there is a Carrefour Express near where I stay. They are actually well operated and have a good product selection. Far better than any other convenience store in Sao Paulo.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Carre ... 46.6943207

Carrefour's Hypermarkets there have a reputation for higher prices than some of the other chains. And they don't really have anything in between in size to complete with Pão de Açúcar and Zona Sul which are the chains that most closely resemble an American supermarket in terms of product selection (although they're usually crammed into the first floor of larger buildings).

But I agree that this seems like a strange pairing for a merger.
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Re: Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

Post by jamcool »

Apparently the French Government is saying “non” to the merger...France has always been against foreign ownership of certain businesses (like food retailing)
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Re: Couche-Tard wants to buy French megaretailer

Post by storewanderer »

That was a quick souring of the deal. I know little about France, but assume folks more familiar with France could have seen this issue coming in advance. With that said, I am surprised they did not figure out this would happen, before formally announcing the transaction.
https://csnews.com/couche-tard-drops-bi ... opposition
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