Retail Evolution: Carrefour's Digital Transformation Through Mobile Engagement

Carrefour is the world’s second-largest retailer, with 12,000+ stores across 30+ countries. In Italy, a market known for intense food retail competition, Carrefour stays ahead by embracing digital transformation. 

To meet evolving customer behavior, Carrefour Italy launched a mobile app that bridges in-store shopping with online services, offering everything from grocery delivery to loyalty rewards in one place.

Carrefour Italy integrated InAppStory to bring social-style interactive Stories into its mobile app. The goal was to boost user engagement, loyalty program awareness, and seasonal campaign interaction. Stories featuring tailored promotions, loyalty perks, and holiday content drove deeper discovery and connected online and in-store experiences.

What Was the Challenge?

Carrefour needed to strengthen its mobile app experience in a market where digital and in-store competition is intense. The app already offered multiple services from online ordering to loyalty tracking, but the homepage lacked an engaging way to surface key promotions, offers, and seasonal campaigns.

The brand wanted a format that was:

• Visually dynamic
• Easy to update
• Familiar to mobile users

At the same time, they aimed to highlight the PAYBACK loyalty program, increase visibility for limited-time product promotions, and make the app experience more intuitive and informative without a complete redesign.

By addressing these needs, Carrefour sought to reinforce its digital strategy and solidify its position in Italy’s competitive food retail space.

⚡ To gain further insights into how evolving consumer behaviors are shaping the food industry, and what strategies can help retailers stay competitive, check out our Food customer engagement report.

How Did Carrefour Use In-App Stories?

Carrefour integrated InAppStory’s SDK to embed swipeable, social-style Stories directly on the app homepage. These Stories replaced static banners with a dynamic content layer that could be updated frequently without developer involvement.

The content team uses Stories to highlight:

Beyond content types, Carrefour also uses targeting features:

• Stories are customized by user segment
• Region-specific promotions can be shown to users in different locations
• The team publishes new content regularly from the console, enabling fast, localized updates

This setup made Stories a scalable way to unify promotions, loyalty messaging, and regional campaigns inside the Carrefour app.

Why It Worked

Carrefour’s use of Stories improved the app experience in several specific ways:

1. Dynamic homepage content: The Stories format brought movement and visual clarity to the app's most important entry point, replacing static promotions.
2. Localized storytelling: Content could be adapted to different user segments and regions, making promotions more relevant and personalized.
3. Seasonal engagement: Stories allowed the team to create daily, limited-time formats during holidays—like advent-style campaigns—encouraging repeat visits.
4. Content agility: Stories were created and published by the internal team, without relying on developers. This made the format sustainable and fast-moving.

The combination of flexible publishing, regional customization, and familiar UX helped Carrefour better promote their loyalty program, support seasonal sales, and deliver ongoing value within the app.

Business Results: Quantifying the Impact of Mobile App Stories on Carrefour

Carrefour's adoption of mobile app Stories has significantly advanced its digital transformation, enhancing customer engagement and loyalty. The integration of stories into the app has not only improved the user experience by making interactions more enjoyable and engaging but also facilitated smoother pathways to product discovery and purchase. 

This approach has effectively revitalized user interaction, boosting the effectiveness of marketing strategies and nurturing customer loyalty through a more informative loyalty program. The partnership with InAppStory has played a key role in refining Carrefour’s digital strategy, demonstrating the transformative power of digital innovation in retail.

What You Can Learn from Carrefour 

1. Add Stories to your app homepage to increase visibility of time-sensitive content
2. Use Stories to educate users about loyalty programs in a visual format
3. Run holiday campaigns with daily or thematic Stories to maintain engagement over time
4. Empower non-technical teams to publish interactive content through a visual console