The global giant shopping experience is coming to Israel. Amazon is in the process of preparing the way to make a big move into the Israeli market.
The online shopping mammoth is soliciting local businesses to use its Amazon.com website and provide “Local Delivery” of their products to Israeli shoppers. Allowing local shop owners to deliver products ordered on its site directly from Israel and not through the overseas Amazon shipping centers means that Israelis will be able to receive their purchases in just 2-3 days, instead of the typical 2-3 weeks it now takes to receive a purchase from Amazon.
“Amazon always starts with seller deliveries as the first stage of its activity,” says Nir Zigdon, founder and CEO of eCommunity as quoted by Globes Business website. “We’ve seen this happen in Australia, India, and now in Israel.”
Amazon will eventually open their own logistic centers in Israel and provide quick delivery for local shoppers from Amazon’s huge selection of products. Local businesses are working hard to secure their share of the local e-commerce market before Amazon has a chance to take over.
Shufersol, Israel’s largest supermarket chain and the leading online grocery market, is especially concerned and has recently made a major upgrade of their shopping platform. “We now realize that we need to do a much better job in order to gain the confidence and commitment of the Israeli shoppers,” a representative of the company said on Israel National News radio. “Once Amazon gets into the retail food shopping market here in Israel, we will have a lot more competition for our customers,”he said.
Amazon bought Whole Foods Market in 2017 for $13.4 billion, which has vastly increased Amazon’s ability to challenge local supermarkets and retailers around the world.
Other local merchants are also trying to improve their online shopping experiences for their customers before Amazon has a chance to establish itself in Israel. Amazon is the largest e-commerce marketplace and Internet company in the world, and the second largest employer in the United States.
