Accused of being the “Big Bad Wolf” by taking advantage of the health crisis, Amazon flies to the aid of small businesses in difficulty. The e-commerce giant is launching a free training program on Tuesday to help French entrepreneurs go digital. The tool “Digital accelerator “ benefited from the support of Bpifrance, the public investment bank owned in equal parts by the State and the Caisse des Dépôts.
France is very late. Only 30% of French merchants have an online sales activity, against 70% in Germany, according to Cédric O, the secretary of state for digital.
1% of retail trade in France
“The health crisis has shown the importance of online sales. We are supporting more and more SMEs in France,” explains Frédéric Duval, CEO of Amazon France, who likes to remind people that the American juggernaut barely represents 1 % of all retail trade in France, far behind the large distribution brands.
Amazon claims 130,000 direct and indirect jobs
More than 1,000 merchants and entrepreneurs have joined the Amazon.fr marketplace since the start of the second lockdown in November. Now, more than 11,000 French companies sell their products through Amazon, taking advantage of its global showcase and its computing power. A third have an annual turnover on the site greater than 100,000 euros and more than 200 sell more than one million euros of goods each year thanks to the strike force of Amazon.
These entrepreneurs have created 13,000 jobs according to Frédéric Duval who says that 130,000 people live from Amazon’s activity in France, of which 9,300 are directly employed by the French subsidiary of the American giant.
The example of Ammareal
Ammareal is one of those businesses that is booming thanks to Amazon. The business of reselling used books collected from libraries and associations started in 2013 with a stock of 300 books. Its shelves now have more than 560,000.
–
Its annual turnover amounts to 3 million euros, nearly half of which comes from the Amazon marketplace. The company classified in the circular economy has created his own site in 2018, but she only sells 5% of her books there. It is indeed difficult to compete with Amazon’s notoriety and its high visibility on search engines. The platform charges an average commission of 15% to third-party sellers who use its site and imposes impeccable customer service on them.
“An exceptional catchment area”
Ammareal has created 10 jobs in Grigny, a commune in Essonne which suffers from a very high unemployment rate. “Four new hires are in progress and our goal is to double the number of employees by the end of 2021”, explains Renan Ayrault, the founder of the company which also has a solidarity dimension. It donates 5% of the amount of sales to associations fighting against illiteracy. “Amazon offers us an exceptional catchment area. Ammareal achieves 20% of its turnover abroad, of which three quarters thanks to Amazon”.
5% of third-party sellers are French
According to Amazon, 70% of French entrepreneurs present on its market place achieved 350 million euros in export turnover in 2019, against 300 million in 2018. However, French companies represent only one small part of the Amazon.fr marketplace activity. The company does not communicate on this point, but French entrepreneurs represent less than 5% of traders on the Marketplace. All the others would be abroad, especially in China. Questioned by Léa Salamé on November 18 on France Inter, Frédéric Duval did not deny this very low figure.
–
