Amazon held 19% of the overall online retail market in France last year, down from 22% in 2019, as a wider variety of retailers ramped up their e-commerce operations, a new study by Kantar has found.
According to Kantar, the French online retail market was worth €43.31 billion last year, which was an increase of 24% year-on-year.
'Growth in spending at Amazon by French customers was very positive in 2020 but slower, however, than the growth in total online spending,' Kantar said in a statement.
Wider Variety
Amazon's performance was impacted by a number of factors, including an increase in the number of sites on which French shoppers made purchases last year, which rose to 6.1 sites on average.
Another factor was the increased number of 'click & mortar' stores – retailers that prioritised their e-commerce operations at a time when their stores were temporarily closed due to lockdown measures.
Elsewhere, logistics problems and other social issues encountered by Amazon over the course of the year – including what Kantar described as 'Amazon bashing' – may have also contributed to reducing the internet giant's penetration by around one percentage point.
Kantar's data does not include the websites operated by France's supermarkets; if the scope is broadened to include these, Amazon's market share stood at 16% last year, compared to 19% in 2019.
Misleading Information
Amazon came under fire earlier this month for directing customers towards products making false COVID-19 claims, when the term 'vaccination' was searched for on its site.
A study by the University of Washington, which was reported by Euronews, found that when the term was searched for, the top option provided was a book that questioned the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines, while also recommending a number of similar anti vaccination texts.
Elsewhere, Amazon recently announced that longstanding CEO Jeff Bezos is to step down in the third quarter of the year, to be replaced by Andy Jassy, who currently heads up the retailer's Amazon Web Services arm. [Pic Patrick De Grijs/123rf.com]
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
