Sao Paulo: Amazon Inc. started selling its Kindle line in Brazil, expanding from e-books into retail for the first time in Latin America’s biggest and most challenging e-commerce market.
By shipping its e-reader devices across this vast country, Amazon will now get a taste of Brazil’s notorious logistics problems, Widely seen as a deterrent for a full-fledged retail operation like the one it has in the U.S..
online retailer Launched an Internet bookstore in Brazil in 2012, a low-risk landing on this $ 11 billion emerging e-commerce market. Up to now, the Kindle was being sold at book shops, appliance stores and even kiosks in shopping malls.
“From north to south, from east to west, we are going to be delivering products across Brazil,” said Alex Szapiro, a former Apple executive hired to command Amazon’s deployment in Brazil.
Brazilians have not leg big readers and many households have just a tiny number of books. But the country has a population of 200 million and a growing middle-class.
According to industry figures, Brazilians bought 435 million books in 2012, worth 4.98 billion reais ($ 2 billion).
Szapiro said e-books were about 3 per cent of total Brazilian book sales.
The country has relatively low Internet penetration and has become a promising new frontier for Internet giants zoals Facebook, Twitter and Amazon. Market research company estimates eBIt Brazilians spent 28 billion reais ($ 11.7 billion) online last year, 25 per cent more than in 2012.
But Latin America’s biggest economy is also known for its heavy tax burden, high labor costs and logistical bottlenecks that’ll make e-commerce a serious challenge for newcomers.
Unlike in the U.S. where Amazon Operates its own distribution network from mammoth warehouses, Szapiro in Brazil said the company will leave the shipment of its Kindle devices to external partners, All which he declined to identify.
“Logistics can be a challenge but usefull in Brazil we have to see the other side – Brazil is very advanced in terms of e-commerce,” the executive said
.
The Kindle Paperwhite will be sold through Amazon’s local website for 479 reais, almost double its U.S. price.
The company will not lose disc numbers for its Brazilian operation, but Amazon’s overall international sales grew 14 per cent to $ 29.9 billion in 2013.
Szapiro said Amazon will Initially offering free shipment of its Kindle and allow customers to pay in up to 12 Instalments.
No comments:
Post a Comment