Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

retaildetail.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 69 posts

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#51

Post by grondilu »

runeks wrote: post #41
yodsanklai wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't see this being accepted by public opinion, and thus by the French government Do they have a word to say on the issue?

I’m also interested in hearing how willing the French government is to prevent the acquisition of a French private company. I’d think this should be up to the owners of the company in question, but the people of France may disagree with me.

There is a rich legal background surrounding mergers and acquisitions in financial markets, not to mention the antitrust laws.

The French government can even write new laws if need be. France is only theoretically capitalistic, in practice the weight of the government is heavy on companies.

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#52

Post by yodsanklai »

Animats wrote: post #29

Carrefour is a big chain. About 12,000 stores. About 20x as many stores as Whole Foods. Most of them are convenience stores. That would give Amazon a very visible brick-and-mortar presence in Europe, approaching 7-11 in the US. A chain of convenience stores is useful to Amazon. They'll all get Amazon Lockers, of course. You'll be able to get everything Amazon sells at those stores, if you just order ahead. They'll pr…

> A chain of convenience stores is useful to Amazon. They'll all get Amazon Lockers, of course. You'll be able to get everything Amazon sells at those stores, if you just order ahead.

I don't know how much it costs Amazon but this is already the case. I always get my Amazon products from the Carrefour next door.

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#53

Post by karambahh »

twiss wrote: post #15

> For competitors like Ahold Delhaize, it would be another blow I'm not sure that's a very good example of a competitor. Carrefour is French, Ahold is Dutch. They don't compete in France, nor in the Netherlands. They both have supermarkets in Belgium, though. Furthermore, Carrefour is known for their hypermarkets which are much larger than regular supermarkets.

Delhaize is a major player on the US market via its "food lion" brand (off the top of my head about 2k stores).

Ahold Delhaize merger is rumored to be a failure. There is an on going war between Dutch and Belgian executives. Recently a Dutch has been appointed ceo of the belgian entity, which was not very well received at all.

Ahold Delhaize is a competitor to Carrefour not only in Belgium but also in eastern Europe (but these are still relatively small markets).

Afaik they have no shops in Latin America nor China, where Carrefour has strong positions.

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#54

Post by sametmax »

yodsanklai wrote: post #26
grondilu wrote: post #10

I'm French, and I can tell you Carrefour is a very famous brand in France. So to me there is no way Amazon will buy it, I just don't see this being accepted by public opinion, and thus by the French government.

> I just don't see this being accepted by public opinion, and thus by the French government Do they have a word to say on the issue?

Unless someone big can make a case that it would be building some kind of monopoly, I doubt french people can do anything about it.

Since the competition is fierce in retailing, it would not fly anyway.

If amazon manage to negotiate the acquisition, I don't think it can be easily stopped. Even if my country forbid it for obscure reasons, Europe would probably override the decision.

It's funny reading the reactions from my french co-citizens, like they are talking about selling the Eiffel Tower.

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#55

Post by ghaff »

Roritharr wrote: post #44
chrisper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Walmart once try to have stores in Germany but then gave up?

Yup, but the german groceries market is about the fiercest on the planet, price is king and the populace isn't easily wooed by additional service if it comes at a premium. Walmart couldn't compete with neither Aldi nor Rewe or anything in between.

There's an Aldi literally right next door to a Walmart about 5 minutes from me in the US. Anecdotally, there never seem to many cars in the Aldi parking lot while Walmart is usually pretty busy. Personally, I stuck my nose in the Aldi once and pretty much decided after a couple of minutes there wasn't anything in there I'd go to a separate store to buy.

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#56

Post by karambahh »

halflings wrote: post #46
mkhalil wrote: post #4

> "Cheuvreux analysts as saying that dispite these rumours, they still feel a collaboration with Google would be more probable for Carrefour than an acquisition by Amazon." I wonder why they think that? What could collaboration with Google bring?

Technology and exposure. Product Search is quite big, if just hasn't been capitalized on enough (other than by Amazon)

Digital is a notorious pain point for Carrefour. Their CDO has been replaced last week by a long time coworker of Alexandre Bompart (newly appointed CEO of Groupe Carrefour).

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #50

This is a story about a newspaper reporting a rumor. That's way too flimsy to be on topic. On HN, we wait until a thing actually happens. There's no harm in doing so, and then there's substance to discuss. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...

[deleted]

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#58

Post by donavanm »

amelius wrote: post #2

https://stallman.org/amazon.html > Amazon has so much power over the US retail economy that it imposes its power over all participants. > If it is going to be a monopoly, it should be regulated like other monopolies. Or perhaps more. > Amazon has so much market share that its sheer size distorts the market. > We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If in a certain field a single d…

And yet no rant on the 6 other companies with larger US sales revenue https://stores.org/stores-top-retailers-2017/. I like that subtle inferred redefinition of "monopoly" as well. Maybe we can just use "decapoly" though. Or how about "rmsnotlikopoly"?

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#59

Post by clort »

danmaz74 wrote: post #45
grondilu wrote: post #10

I'm French, and I can tell you Carrefour is a very famous brand in France. So to me there is no way Amazon will buy it, I just don't see this being accepted by public opinion, and thus by the French government.

The thing that really worries me, as a EU citizen (Italian), is Amazon cheating on taxes through Luxembourg. If we continue this way, Luxembourg and Ireland will end up stealing all corporate taxes from all of the rest of the EU. EDIT: I thought it was Ireland, in this case it was Luxembourg.

Are they cheating, or are they using the EU as it is intended to be? I mean sure, they may not be paying any taxes though Ireland doesn't seem to get much of them either.. perhaps its time to change the EU somehow, to prevent this?

Re: Amazon eyes Carrefour acquisition

#60

Post by runeks »

nomercy400 wrote: post #3

Why would I, as a European, want to buy my groceries from an American company? It's not like the big shopping malls like Walmart or Costco are so appealing. Surely we can manage a suitable groceries network on our own.

Why wouldn’t we, as Europeans, want the ability to buy groceries from an American company? If they offer better service we gain from that and, if they don’t, we can just ignore them and go about our business as usual.
Post reply on HN