Amazon News: Could The E-Commerce Giant Open Retail Stores In Germany?

E-commerce company Amazon could decide to open retail stores in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, German media reported Sunday.

“The fact is that we know that customers shop offline and that they like variety,” Ralf Kleber, Amazon’s managing director for Germany told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Kleber did not give a timetable of when the stores would open but the retail outlets could take the form of bookstores that sell Amazon Echo and Alexa products.

In 2017, Kleber told the German Berliner Morgenpost newspaper that “it’s not a question of if, but when” Amazon would open up physical stores in the country.

“Customers love diversity online and in the traditional retail industry. That industry still accounts for 90 to 95 percent of sales in Germany and we will never forget what the customer wants,” Kleber said at the time.

Germany is already delivering groceries through its Amazon Fresh service to residents in the German cities of Berlin, Potsdam, Hamburg and Munich. Yet, online sales have been slow, as many Germans still prefer to go to traditional supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi. Amazon has recently lowered fees for the Fresh service in Germany in order to attract customers.

In the United States, there are currently 18 Amazon Go convenience stores around the country, which allow customers to make purchases without a cashier. The cities with the most Amazon Go locations are Seattle and Chicago.