According to the survey of Kantar Worldpanel, 15% of the households in France do their groceries in drive-thru stores. In November 2011, the proportion was half this.

The first drive-thru store was started by Auchan in 2000 in northern France. At the time customers, once arriving at the store, ordered products from a terminal; then few minutes later supermarket employees packed his trunk with groceries.

Since then, the model has barely changed. Orders are made online and the only thing that differs is the place where customers collect their purchases. In some cases it is a part of an existing store,              in others it is a separate warehouse without traditional store.

Last year the number of drive-thru stores grew by 1000 up to 1968 in December. The First place belongs to System U with over 500 stores, followed by Intermarche and Leclerc.  This new model of sales represent 2,8 % of market share which is equivalent to market share of brands like Aldi or Simply Market.  As for the turnover it generates, it should exceed 2 billion euro in 2012 and be three times more in 2015.

“This is the service that people expect", explains Thierry Desouches, Système U spokesman. Large retailers are expected to have a drive-thru service. Otherwise the competition will take over their clients. As an example out of the total growth of Leclerc drive-thru clients over the last period, 87% used do their groceries in the store before, but 13% came from other retailers.

This model seems to be convenient for the customers but is profitable? Several large retailers admitted in LSA magazine still not having reached the balance, taking into account the investment - especially with only drive-thru model (land, employees, construction and inventory control, etc).

Eventually, retailers will have to find solutions to make the drive-thru model more cost-effective says Yves Marin, from Kurt Salmon - for example, put an end to the free service. Meanwhile, he forecasts this will remain the main trend in retail market in France probably for the next ten years.

Auchan seems to have a solution for what the drive-thru model lacks. Company is planning to start a concept called – “Multifresh”. The retailer wants to offer the possibility of choosing fresh products by clients themselves. Selling fresh products has always been a problem with drive-thru model. Customers buy a little of meat, vegetables or fruits because they cannot choose the product that meet their expectations.

Auchan says that “this concept has already been tested in UK by Tesco or Marks & Spencer. The idea is to go one step further and offer solution that gives opportunity to customers to save time and pick products they like.

From our perspective this channel is a valuable differentiator for retailers and offers another level of service to the customer. While this clearly is the battleground in capturing the hearts, minds and wallets of the customer, the question is how can these initiatives remain profitable with ever eroding margins at the retail level.  Auchan concept seems to give opportunity to gain more clients and increase profitability of drive-thru model.