Amazon plans to keep its European expansion during 2023

Amazon plans to keep its European expansion with Amazon Business expanding in Europe during 2023. 

Bezos company plans to expand its B2B division - Amazon Business - although it remains unclear now which new countries it will target. The company is currently investing in its logistics to supply European businesses with office supplies in bulk. And this investment makes it absolutely clear that Amazon wants to control and conquer B2B operations in Europe. 

The online marketplace has been dealing with rising operational costs due to inflation. As a result of that, it has raised its fulfillment costs in Europe this month. It also plans to close all of its 68 brick-and-mortar bookstores, pop-up shops, and ‘4-start’ stores in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Getting back on track 

After several layoffs and multiple reported losses, things are picking up for Amazon. In the last quarter, the e-commerce giant grew by 9 %, and profits are back up.

Amazon was able to publish surprisingly strong quarterly results, with sales reaching 127.4 billion dollars (115 billion euros), well above analysts' forecasts. Online sales remained stable, which is a feat in itself, as at the beginning of last year, many countries were still under Covid restrictions, which led to exceptional growth in e-commerce.

For-profits and growth, Amazon has to rely on its other businesses: at its AWS cloud services, revenue grew by 16 % despite a slowdown in growth. April had already seen a sharp downturn as economic uncertainty drove customers to seek cheaper alternatives to store their data. Nevertheless, the advertising category generated 9.7 billion dollars in revenue and grew by 21 %.

After a 3.8 billion dollar loss a year ago, Amazon is back above zero: the quarter ended with a profit of 3.2 billion dollars. According to CFO Brian Olsavsky, the US labor market is calming down, which has helped to reduce transportation and personnel costs. Amazon has also cut 27,000 jobs in recent months and does not rule out the possibility of further waves of layoffs.