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Amazon Enjoys Grocery Sales Boom

Friday, July 31, 2020 - 18:04 by David Aiken

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The number of people turning to Amazon to buy groceries via safe shopping online in the past three months has risen significantly, allowing the e-commerce giant to gain even more of a foothold in this segment of the market.

With a 160 per cent increase in grocery sales reported during this period, Amazon’s rise to prominence in the home grocery delivery niche has coincided with increased efforts by the firm to make local collection of consumables available to more people.

While the company may have injected £3 billion into its infrastructure in order to cope with the new challenges thrown up as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it has still managed to report a doubling of its profits for the last quarter, indicating just how much demand there has been for online shopping during lockdown.

In the UK alone the firm managed to generate £66.8 billion in sales between April and June, equating to a 40 per cent year-on-year increase in activity.

Another fact highlighted in its latest performance report shows that Amazon actually generated more sales through its marketplace service than via its own supply chain, meaning that third-party merchants were also benefitting from increased traction over this period.

Further to its successes in the e-commerce industry, Amazon has been reaffirming its commitment to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero within the next half a decade, which is an aim that a number of other major corporations have also said that they will match.

Critics are still concerned by the extent to which Amazon has a monopoly over online shopping both in the UK and in other parts of the world, although based on these figures it seems unlikely that it will be challenged by any rival without intervention from regulators and politicians.