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Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition
- amelius 9y agohttps://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html > Amazon has so much power over the US retail economy that it imposes its power over all participants. > If it is going to be a monopoly, it should be regulated like other monopolies. Or perhaps more. > Amazon has so much market share that its sheer size distorts the market. > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If in a certain field a single dominant company is beneficial for society, that means it is a natural monopoly, and should be served by a regulated utility.
- curiousgal 9y agoAh, the good'ol "Stallman was right".
- donavanm 9y agoAnd yet no rant on the 6 other companies with larger US sales revenue https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2017/ https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2017/. I like that subtle inferred redefinition of "monopoly" as well. Maybe we can just use "decapoly" though. Or how about "rmsnotlikopoly"?
- nomercy400 9y agoWhy would I, as a European, want to buy my groceries from an American company? It's not like the big shopping malls like Walmart or Costco are so appealing. Surely we can manage a suitable groceries network on our own.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoUnfortunately, as a mere customers, it's not up to you or me.
- bastawhiz 9y ago> the big shopping malls like Walmart or Costco I guess that's one way of thinking about them. If you haven't, I hope you never have the displeasure of visiting an actual American shopping mall.
- curiousgal 9y agoI am not an American but currently staying in the U.S., why is it a displeasure?
- tomc1985 9y agoThey really aren't all that different from shopping malls in other countries. Or, at least, Europe + Mexico
- oh_sigh 9y agoCostco is very appealing. Have you ever been?
- jypepin 9y agoMight be for the way American do groceries, and usually in Europe people are way more attracted by local, smaller scale stores and buy food almost exclusively day by day. So no, something like Costco where you can buy everything at 10x the scale to save some bucks might not be as appealing for the european market, which is more into local, healthy alternatives, despite being more expensive. source: I lived half my life in America, half in Europe.
- arkades 9y agoI really love and prefer the way grocery shopping is done in Europe, but it's fairly contingent on the ubiquity of those small grocers. In the US, a much larger / lower population density country, physically getting to a grocery on a daily basis isn't practical. I don't see this as being about "healthier alternatives" or "saving a few bucks." I can't do European-style grocery shopping in the US /despite/ my preference for it.
- oh_sigh 9y agoYou can do it, you just need to live in a city. If you need to drive 15 minutes each way to get to the grocery store, then doing that every day is a huge waste of time.
- jypepin 9y agoTrue. I wanted to say that it's bc europe is more populated in cities vs us, but didn't have anything back it up and wasn't sure it was true - but yeah, it's mostly because of city living, smaller grocers and smaller places with smaller room to store stuff :)
- anonu 9y agoYour comment points to the fact that the globalisation project we've embarked on for close to 70 years is either sick or dying... What does it matter if the company still employs Europeans and supports local economies?
- marindez 9y agoIt matters because we want control.
- tomc1985 9y agoAmerican business culture/ethic writ large is not really very compatible (or welcoming) of others' practices. Hegemony sucks when you're under it.
- ajdlinux 9y agoYou can employ local workers and stimulate the local economy - the owners of capital still extract profits and take them back home. All else being equal, a locally-owned business is better for the local economy than a foreign-owned business - which is not to say that foreign investment is a bad thing when it brings in more capital.
- btian 9y agoBecause Amazon.com is already popular in Europe. It's not that big a jump to also buy groceries from Amazon.
- jonknee 9y agoWell on the flip side, in America we seem to have no problems buying groceries from a European company (Aldi sells many times more groceries here than Amazon does, even counting Whole Foods).
- rjsw 9y agoWalmart now owns Asda, one of the supermarket chains in the UK.
- chrisper 9y agoDidn't Walmart once try to have stores in Germany but then gave up?
- allendoerfer 9y agoThere is a huge competition in Germany, when Aldi lowers prices for e.g. for milk, everyone else follows.
- Roritharr 9y agoYup, but the german groceries market is about the fiercest on the planet, price is king and the populace isn't easily wooed by additional service if it comes at a premium. Walmart couldn't compete with neither Aldi nor Rewe or anything in between.
- ghaff 9y agoThere's an Aldi literally right next door to a Walmart about 5 minutes from me in the US. Anecdotally, there never seem to many cars in the Aldi parking lot while Walmart is usually pretty busy. Personally, I stuck my nose in the Aldi once and pretty much decided after a couple of minutes there wasn't anything in there I'd go to a separate store to buy.
- Roritharr 9y agoThat's the point, consumer attitude is completely different in Germany than in the US. Saving 5€-10€ in aggregate is worth it to a lot of Germans.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gwatch 9y agoYou don’t have to buy from an American company. But you have no moral authority to force someone, in this case the owners of Carrefour, to do what you want them to do with their business. You’re not entitled to someone else’s labor or service. You’re arguing for socialism, and socialism is evil for the reason I mentioned above.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoCostco is amazing and extremely efficient. Whats not appealing?
- runeks 9y agoWhy wouldn’t we, as Europeans, want the ability to buy groceries from an American company? If they offer better service we gain from that and, if they don’t, we can just ignore them and go about our business as usual.
- mkhalil 9y ago> "Cheuvreux analysts as saying that dispite these rumours, they still feel a collaboration with Google would be more probable for Carrefour than an acquisition by Amazon." I wonder why they think that? What could collaboration with Google bring?
- jypepin 9y agoMaybe they think google shopping express is still a thing :D
- halflings 9y agoTechnology and exposure. Product Search is quite big, if just hasn't been capitalized on enough (other than by Amazon)
- karambahh 9y agoDigital is a notorious pain point for Carrefour. Their CDO has been replaced last week by a long time coworker of Alexandre Bompart (newly appointed CEO of Groupe Carrefour).
- runeks 9y agoCarrefour brings retail merchant-experience, Google brings experience in software. Retail merchant-experience + software experience = Amazon.
- grondilu 9y agoI'm French, and I can tell you Carrefour is a very famous brand in France. So to me there is no way Amazon will buy it, I just don't see this being accepted by public opinion, and thus by the French government.
- jypepin 9y agoI'm French, and that's also the first thing I thought when I read this title. I really don't see this happening, knowing how the French government is anti us tech companies (remember when yahoo wanted to buy Dailymotion?)
- agumonkey 9y agoConsidering what Dailymotion became, I'm not sure protectionism was the right choice.
- jypepin 9y agoI'm definitely against it - just stating the facts!
- agumonkey 9y agoI got you, you're right, compared to dailymotion, Carrefour is a national monument and I wouldn't bet a dollar that Amazon will be able to touch one hair of it. ps: that said, I despise large retail stores
- zer0tonin 9y agoThe website dailymotion.com is falling apart, but the company is still doing alright by focusing on hosting videos for third party websites. And it's good to remember that getting acquired by yahoo has been a death sentence for a few sites.
- agumonkey 9y agoAlso their warehouse practices seem to be unwelcomed to say the least.
- tarikozket 9y agoFinally, my American friends will know something about Carrefour.
- agumonkey 9y agoDon't worry, some of them are still trying to figure out the psychedelic logo.
- twiss 9y ago> For competitors like Ahold Delhaize, it would be another blow I'm not sure that's a very good example of a competitor. Carrefour is French, Ahold is Dutch. They don't compete in France, nor in the Netherlands. They both have supermarkets in Belgium, though. Furthermore, Carrefour is known for their hypermarkets which are much larger than regular supermarkets.
- karambahh 9y agoDelhaize is a major player on the US market via its "food lion" brand (off the top of my head about 2k stores). Ahold Delhaize merger is rumored to be a failure. There is an on going war between Dutch and Belgian executives. Recently a Dutch has been appointed ceo of the belgian entity, which was not very well received at all. Ahold Delhaize is a competitor to Carrefour not only in Belgium but also in eastern Europe (but these are still relatively small markets). Afaik they have no shops in Latin America nor China, where Carrefour has strong positions.
- curiousgal 9y agoCarrefour is quite present in North Africa (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia..) as well, this would give Amazon quite the global reach!
- golem14 9y agoCarrefour has also stores in Asia (e.g. a honking big branch in Shenyang, near the financial center). Edit: Google maps finds eleven Carrefour stores in Shenyang alone.
- lucasverra 9y agoAlso south America, Argentina more explicitly
- Animats 9y agoCarrefour is a big chain. About 12,000 stores. About 20x as many stores as Whole Foods. Most of them are convenience stores. That would give Amazon a very visible brick-and-mortar presence in Europe, approaching 7-11 in the US. A chain of convenience stores is useful to Amazon. They'll all get Amazon Lockers, of course. You'll be able to get everything Amazon sells at those stores, if you just order ahead. They'll probably have same-day delivery to their own stores. Small scale retail in France is going to take a big hit from this.
- yodsanklai 9y ago> A chain of convenience stores is useful to Amazon. They'll all get Amazon Lockers, of course. You'll be able to get everything Amazon sells at those stores, if you just order ahead. I don't know how much it costs Amazon but this is already the case. I always get my Amazon products from the Carrefour next door.
- thetalkingcode 9y agoAI is not going to rule the world. It will be Amazon.
- karambahh 9y agoCarrefour is a state of crisis both internally (the newly appointed ceo is quoted as having "vowed to clean the mess", several high ranking executives have been shown the door or been effectively demoted) and externally (shares have been tumbling for quite a while). Anything is possible but, to me, an attempt to raise valuation is the most likely explanation. Sources are always "analysts" who seem to have skin in the game.
- dang 9y agoThis is a story about a newspaper reporting a rumor. That's way too flimsy to be on topic. On HN, we wait until a thing actually happens. There's no harm in doing so, and then there's substance to discuss. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20%22actually%20happens%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Xoros 9y agoDon't forget that Carrefour also have shops in Brazil, China, Taiwan...