Cora starts clearing stock ahead of closure

Hypermarket chain Cora is clearing its stock through staggered steep discounts, hoping to empty its stores progressively ahead of renovation works as all of the group's stores prepare to close down.

The renovations are intended to help better sell space to other retailers when all of Cora's stores shut down later this year, RTBF reports.

Rather than rushing to clear its stock a month before closing, Cora has opted for a sale spread over several months.

“It's a smart move on their part,” said UMons marketing professor Angy Geerts, adding that the strategy seems to be working.

“For example, they are offering promotions on all garden furniture: it's the end of summer and consumers are looking to replace this type of product.”

This choice allows the group to maintain commercial activity until the very end on fast-moving goods such as perishable food while taking advantage of seasonality.

In several of Cora's stores, the shelves in a number of sections are already empty.

“We’re going to reduce the surface area of each of the stores a little, so we’re in the process of making major moves everywhere to free up space for the first phase of work,” explained a Cora Belgium spokesperson.

As a smaller surface area requires fewer staff, Cora plans to already start laying off some employees.

Offers may vary across the group’s seven stores, with larger discounts applied to final items and display models.

UMons economist Guillaume Vermeylen said customers can look for bargains in electronics in particular and that “consumers should be aware that a bargain may be a product that came out in 2022-2023 and therefore not the latest television model.”

Even though items in liquidation cannot be returned or exchanged, the two-year legal warranty still applies.

“We have entered into a partnership with an external service provider who will have access to all our customer data in order to fully honour the warranties on behalf of Cora,” said the brand's spokesperson.

There are already new tenants for the retail space waiting in the wings: seven new Delhaize supermarkets are planned to replace some of the closing Cora stores.

Delhaize has not officially confirmed that these stores will be located where Cora hypermarkets are set to close at the end of January, but the information published in Delhaize's press release leaves little room for doubt, as the locations of the seven new supermarkets coincide with those of the former Cora stores.

Delhaize will lease the seven retail spaces from Mitiska REIM, the group that is taking over the Cora sites. The supermarket chain expect to create 300 new jobs across seven new stores.

Dreamland is also planning to move into one of the former stores, which will be divided into several retail spaces of various sizes.