Is it possible to compete with Amazon?
Several years ago, the largest department store in Europe — and the third in the world — Spain’s El Corte Inglés, announced a two-hour delivery service for purchases of more than €20 and up to five products in more than 54 Spanish towns and cities, a move clearly designed to compete with Amazon Prime Now, which is still only available in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.
The efforts of the Spanish distribution giant to compete against Amazon are reminiscent, despite its very different positioning, of another family-owned retailer, this time from the United States, Walmart, which has also been trying to compete with Prime Now via Walmart+, and which yesterday announced a 74% increase in its online sales and the closure of Jet, the online supermarket created by Marc Lore which it acquired for $3.3 billion in August 2016. After the acquisition, which saw Lore become director of the company’s global online business, Walmart’s strategy changed radically and was based on Jet.com’s strategy, with largely satisfactory results. In fact, the company maintains a reasonably innovative position in logistics, and is even testing delivery by autonomous vehicles in some cities.
Is it possible to compete with a giant like Amazon? What does it mean, for example, that two-hour delivery has been available in Spain for years via companies like El Corte Inglés, but that it…
