Amazon wants a bigger slice of the fresh and frozen food distribution business in Spain.
The e-commerce giant today launches its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service in the country, where the consumer can purchase meat, fish, fruits and vegetables and dairy, among many other products.
The movement takes place in the midst of the pandemic, when consumer habits are changing
and a large number of people have chosen to buy these types of items online, a basic category in the shopping cart that until now resisted playing a leading role in
ecommerce
.
The fear of contagion has accelerated its adoption, and it is already something that will last over time, according to analysts.
The launch of Amazon Fresh, which is only available to Prime customers of the company, at least for now, raises the pressure of the multinational on Mercadona, Carrefour, Lidl, Aldi, Ahorramas or El Corte Inglés, because although in the premiere it is only available for Madrid and surroundings (Alcobendas, Tres Cantos, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Coslada…), Amazon's ambition is to extend it to more Spanish cities, according to Camille Bur, country manager for Amazon Fresh in Spain, tells CincoDías.
"In a few weeks it will be available in Barcelona, and obviously we would like to bring it to more customers, but I can not comment on future plans," adds the directive.
Amazon Fresh is currently operating in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Italy,
where it has also just premiered, as well as now in Spain.
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Although Amazon already sold dry food on Amazon.com and fresh and frozen products through Prime Now (an independent website of the company), now, Bur explains, “we want to make things easier for the consumer and for this we offer Amazon Fresh directly through Amazon.com [its great online showcase] and the company's application ”.
The new service starts with more than 10,000 items
, including eggs, cereals, pasta, juices and ice cream.
“There is everything you need to do the complete purchase of the week.
And all with same-day delivery in two-hour bands (from 8:00 to 24:00) and at no additional cost on orders over 50 euros, ”continues Bur.
Yes, you will have to pay 3.90 euros if the purchase is less than that figure.
And 4.99 euros for those who want to receive the order in windows of one hour (this is only available in some postal codes).
Amazon Fresh, which is operational seven days a week, only accepts orders starting at 15 euros.
Amazon Fresh also joins the
Dia store, which is also available from this January on Amazon.com,
and where there are more than 7,000 Dia brand items, as well as local products and major brands.
This service is offered in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Malaga, Alicante and Seville, but Bur explains that they are working with Dia to take it to other cities this year and expand the assortment of products.
Camille Bur, country manager for Amazon Fresh in Spain.
Online food sales are clearly on the rise and Amazon knows this well.
For this reason, it is launching Amazon Fresh almost in parallel in Spain and Italy.
In the latter country, the service was launched in Milan last week and will shortly be launched in Rome.
Also in France, where it already had an agreement with Monoprix (Casino Group) similar to the one it reached with Dia in Spain in 2016 to offer its products through the Prime Now service, it announced a few days ago the availability of the Monoprix store on Amazon. fr.
With all these movements, the American
ecommerce
giant
seeks to reach more potential customers in a sector that has been growing since the lockdown.
Although Bur points out that the arrival of Amazon Fresh to Spain "has been preparing for a long time and is independent of the pandemic," he acknowledges that it
is a "very convenient service in the current context."
For its launch, Amazon claims to have an extensive network of national suppliers, both large brands and SMEs, "and we will receive daily products from Mercamadrid and Mercabarna."
Amazon has three urban warehouses (two in Madrid and one in Barcelona) from which it will manage Amazon Fresh orders.
"We work with very strict protocols to handle fresh, refrigerated and frozen products and we deliver with isothermal bags," says Bur, who does not offer data on what market share they aspire to have in food distribution in Spain or the investment made by the company to launch this new service, especially in logistics.
A key element to be able to offer perishable products.
At present, and according to experts,
the logistics barrier is a factor that makes any international B2C strategy impossible for a vast majority of agri-food products
, in the absence of solutions adapted to the problems of the sector (perishable products, respect for the cold chain ).
The director of Amazon Fresh in Spain prefers not to answer when asked about the role that Amazon could play in boosting exports of agri-food products, a sector where Spain is strong.
"We always work to give access to more market and give more opportunity to Spanish producers," he says.
Analysts see the food sector as a strategic bet for Amazon (just remember the purchase it made of Whole Foods supermarkets for $ 13.7 billion in 2017 in the US) and believe that the company's movements suggest that its ambition It could go through creating a logistics infrastructure for perishable products at a global level (today the supply is scarce and very expensive) and becoming a partner of companies, cooperatives and any producer of agri-food products.
For now, the company recognizes that
the online sale of food is one of the fastest growing businesses in Amazon
and that the search for this type of product increased with the Covid-19, with which they hope that this service will be very well received by your Prime customers.
Analysts also agree that Jeff Bezos' company hopes to be a major player in online food retailing, "because otherwise they wouldn't get in here."
But they also point out that Amazon is not yet a reference in this sector and they will have to invest time and money to achieve it.
But the moment seems propitious, as the pandemic sank e-commerce in tourism in Spain, but triggered it in supermarkets, according to data from the CNMC.
In the second quarter of 2020, hypermarkets, supermarkets and grocery stores sneaked into the top ten sectors with the highest e-commerce revenue with 4.1%.