Amazon and Temu are taking totally different tacks to problem Poland’s on-line market chief Allegro, with the U.S. e-commerce large leaning into video and the fashion-focused Chinese language firm counting on low costs to win prospects.

The 2 retailers see alternatives in Central and Japanese Europe’s greatest financial system and the area as an entire, the place progress charges are set to outpace these of extra mature Western markets as incomes rise and extra consumers transfer on-line.

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Amazon plans so as to add extra unique Polish-language exhibits to the 5 it has launched on its Prime Video service since 2023, its nation supervisor for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and enlargement markets Rocco Braeuniger informed Reuters.

“The place we now have seen a great response was Prime Video and we’ll double down on this,” he mentioned. “We’ll put money into Prime Video and native productions inside the area.”

Amazon’s documentary about soccer star Robert Lewandowski is its most-watched title ever in Poland.

Amazon Prime, which incorporates video-streaming alongside different providers, prices 49 zlotys a yr in Poland. Most Polish subscribers use the video profit, which the corporate sees as key to attracting and conserving customers, Braeuniger mentioned.

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Amazon, whose Alexa voice-assistant software program was developed at its expertise centre within the Polish metropolis of Gdansk, additionally plans to take a position extra throughout the area, together with in logistics. “We see an incredible progress potential in CEE,” Braeuniger mentioned.

ROOM TO GROW

Business our bodies EuroCommerce and Ecommerce Europe lately valued the general European on-line market at 900 billion euros ($975 billion), of which 67% was in Western Europe.

Central and Japanese European nations accounted for simply 8% and a pair of% of whole turnover respectively, leaving loads of room for progress.

On-line market gross sales in Poland, with almost 40 million individuals, are dominated by Allegro, which was based in 1999 and made its debut on the Warsaw inventory trade in 2020.

Amazon entered the Polish market in 2021.

China’s Temu – owned by PDD Holdings – adopted in 2023 and shortly devoured up market share to lap Amazon with low-cost style choices which have helped make the discounter into a world e-commerce behemoth.

“Now we have acquired encouraging suggestions from customers within the CEE area,” Temu mentioned in a press release.

In February, Amazon had virtually 5.9 million customers in Poland, lagging far behind Allegro, with 18.2 million, and Temu’s 13.7 million, based on Mediapanel Gemius Polska and PBI information quoted by information company PAP Biznes.

Pawel Szpigiel, an analyst at DM mBank, mentioned Allegro’s loyal buyer base and wide selection of providers made it a tricky market chief to unseat however that Amazon’s potential to construct slowly and Temu’s capability to compete on costs posed a possible risk.

“Allegro positively cannot sleep peacefully as a result of the e-commerce market may be very dynamic, as evidenced by the success of Temu around the globe,” Szpigiel mentioned.

“Amazon’s technique is totally different and has at all times been totally different from that of Chinese language firms,” he added. “Amazon has a method of very lengthy trench warfare.”

CLOSE TO CUSTOMERS

Proximity to its prospects has helped Allegro defend its main place in Poland and push its flagship model into the neighbouring Czech Republic in 2023 and Slovakia this yr, Chief Monetary Officer Jon Eastick informed Reuters.

The corporate – which operates in six nations following the acquisition of Mall.CZ – plans to launch the Allegro model in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia in 2024.

“Our power, particularly in a spot just like the Czech Republic or Slovakia, is that they are adjoining markets to Poland,” Eastick mentioned. “The Polish service provider providing is just not an ideal match for tastes in these nations, however it’s fairly shut.”

However competing towards deep-pocketed Amazon might weigh. Trigon analyst Dominik Niszcz forecasts that Allegro’s 2024 adjusted EBITDA loss from worldwide operations might high 500 million zlotys, relying on bills within the fourth quarter associated to coming into the Hungarian market.

One other problem within the area has been inflation, which has ranked among the many highest within the European Union and pushed customers to maintain a tighter grip on their spending.

Poland’s annual inflation in peaked at 18.4% in February 2023 and has since eased to 1.9%, though analysts count on it to tick up once more because of the authorities scrapping the zero value-added tax fee on meals and probably unfreezing power costs.

Some analysts additionally level to Poland’s comparatively low family financial savings fee, saying non-public consumption might get better extra slowly if households choose to first rebuild their financial savings cushion, one thing Allegro’s Eastick additionally recognized as a threat.

“The restoration (in consumption) appears to be coming a bit slower than the economists count on. So we’re cautious from that perspective,” Eastick mentioned.

Nonetheless, “this yr we may even be in a great place to profit from the transfer again in direction of discretionary spending”, he added.

($1 = 0.9230 euros)

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