Monthly Amazon Update – December 2019

How much revenue does Amazon generate in Germany? The online journal Digital-Kompakt, together with Metoda, the university of St. Gallen and digital consultants Etribes, conducted a study to determine Amazon’s market dominance. According to the report, Amazon Germany had a turnover of 11.35 billion Euros in the first half of 2019, which corresponds to 37% of all German online-business revenue. Link

According to Oliver Wyman, Amazon in Germany will face a new competitor this year with Chinese online giant Alibaba. In the endgame, the two players could fight over world market dominance: It’s expected that AliExpress, Alibabas online-business subsidiary, will enter the private German market. For now, the Chinese company limits itself to doing business with commercial partners. The Chinese, South-east Asian, Indian, Turkish and Russian markets dominating company is supposedly already planning its expansion to Europe: a new 220.000 square meters logistics center is being built at the Belgian Airport of Lüttich, 60 kilometers away from the german border. Another test object for western markets could be the newly-opened flagship-store in Madrid. In the last 2 years, Alibaba used a similar approach in India, Russia and Turkey. Link

The German Amazon competitor Otto.de keeps following its marketplace strategy: starting in January, the existing management branch “categories” will be replaced by the new “trade and marketplace” branch. Bodo Kipper, formerly “Head of Merchant Services” for 7 years at Amazon Germany, will be responsible for the new sector. With the marketplace strategy, Otto plans to increase its platform business “massively” by acquiring new commercial partners. Link