SAO PAULO: Amazon.com met in Brazil last week with an array of manufacturers to discuss plans to stock and sell products from consumer electronics to perfume in the country, according to sources.
The move would take the US e-commerce giant beyond its current role in Brazil as a marketplace for third-party sellers, representing a major advance into the biggest retail market in Latin America.
Amazon has waded slowly into Brazil’s complex and highly competitive online retail market, starting with e-book sales in 2012, adding physical books two years later and offering third-party sales of electronics in October.
Yet the company appears to be accelerating its expansion this year as the Brazilian economy exits a painful recession, stiffening competition for local rivals such as Mercado Libre, B2w Cia Digital, Via Varejo SA and Magazine Luiza SA.
E-commerce accounts for around five per cent of Brazil’s roughly $300 billion retail market – about half its share in the US – but has doubled in the past four years and is forecast to keep growing annually at a double-digit pace.
Amazon representatives, including senior executive Ticiana Mártyres, told several dozen potential suppliers gathered at the Hotel Blue Tree Morumbi last week that the company planned to use its own transportation and call centres in Brazil, according to one of the sources.
“They said they were going to buy directly from the manufacturers and resell,” said a source.
Amazon said it would store goods at its facilities in Greater Sao Paulo, the source added.
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