Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Joao Luiz Bulcao / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 16:31 pm, May 23, 2023

Lidl announced on Tuesday the launch of an e-commerce site in the country, on which it will market non-food products "from June 1". "From June 1, 2023," lidl.fr will house "an e-commerce platform that offers a wide selection of non-food products for everyday life," says its executive director.

The German-born discounter Lidl, which has become the sixth largest supermarket chain in France, announced on Tuesday the launch of an e-commerce site in the country, on which it will market non-food products "from June 1". "From June 1, 2023," lidl.fr will house "an e-commerce platform that offers a wide selection of non-food products for everyday life," Michel Biero, executive purchasing director at Lidl France, said in a statement.

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2,000 products on sale by July

The brand, which claims 1,580 stores in France plans to sell 2,000 products on the site by July, "and 5,000 are planned by the end of the year, in the form of one-off or permanent offers", in a dozen categories such as "fashion", "multimedia", "animals", "garden & terrace" or "baby & child". It plans to deliver in two to four days from a warehouse in Roosendaal, the Netherlands.

"If the lidl.fr site already ranks among the ten most visited websites in France," adds in the press release Arnaud Girard who is responsible for online commerce at Lidl France, the brand hopes that "this new commercial offer should further increase its attendance, while developing the reputation of the brand".

8μ market share of mass distribution

In February 2022, a study by panelist Mediamétrie conducted for Fevad, the federation of e-commerce and distance selling, had indeed highlighted that nearly 13 million unique visitors connected each month to the Lidl site in France, while the brand did not sell anything, unlike the other members of the top 10 at the time (in order, Amazon, Leboncoin, CDiscount, Fnac, Vinted, Carrefour, E.Leclerc, AliExpress and Booking.com).

According to the specialized media LSA, this was explained in particular by the possibility of consulting online the various catalogs of the sixth supermarket chain in France, behind, in order, E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché, Système U and Auchan.

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Lidl has nearly 8% of the market share of mass distribution, and has achieved in France a turnover that "approaches 15 billion euros" in 2022, up "6 to 7%", said mid-April Michel Biero in an interview with LSA. It already sells online in seven European countries, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and the Czech Republic.