Why isn’t Amazon coming to Greece

By Matina Harkovtakis

Although there have been various rumors from time to time that Amazon will officially gain a presence in the Greek market, such a possibility, at least for the time being, seems remote. And in order to avoid misunderstandings, let’s clarify that when we talk about Amazon we mean the well-known market, which is still not available in Greek.

Otherwise, the American technology giant entered our country with the vehicular subsidiary Amazon Web Services, one of the most important companies in the world in the category of cloud services, when in 2021 it opened offices in Athens with the aim of creating a “local area”, which will be connected to the global AWS network.

And although the investment in question is moving towards implementation, it does not seem that Amazon is ready to launch the Greek version of the popular market, that is, to have amazon.gr, while the scenario is to invest in establishing a logistics center in our country in order to serve orders that are delivered within Greek territory, It seems very difficult to make it a reality.

Small market and difficult assortment

It should be noted that at present, a large share of online purchases made by Greek consumers is occupied by Amazon, who can proceed to purchase items sent to Greece, for example, through the British or German Amazon.

In addition, there are quite a few Greek companies that have registered with Amazon in order to address foreign consumers and increase their exports. As things show, so far this model works well enough and there is no need to change it. As they indicated in CapitalInformed sources on this matter, the size of the Greek market is small for the American giant, a factor that acts as a deterrent to further investment in our country. This, of course, does not mean that the turnover is indifferent, however, it does not lead to the creation of the Greek version, the translation of the site into Greek.

In this, it should be noted that after the return to normal, e-commerce has returned to normal growth rates while the physical store prevails in many cases.

Another element that prevents the Amazon from gaining a presence in our country is the morphology of Greece, as it contains many mountains in addition to a large number of islands. This makes managing an online marketplace more complex on a business level. Even in Poland, where the most recent example is the creation of the Polish Amazon, the American company is moving slowly, prioritizing growth in large markets such as Germany. In any case, it will be interesting if it finally decides to establish a presence in our country, how this move will affect the local scene and how the competition will be shaped.