Amazon to help European vendors sell goods across borders

[LONDON] Amazon.com Inc will offer to deliver vendors' goods to customers in other European Union countries, as the e-commerce giant seeks to dominate online deliveries across the region.

European sellers on Amazon Marketplace can now ship inventory to one of Amazon's 29 distribution centers on the continent, where the company will store the goods for them. When the sellers receive an order from a customer in another EU country, Amazon will ship the goods to the buyer's home.

"Our mission is to help every seller in Europe sell to every customer in Europe," Francois Saugier, Amazon's director of European seller services, said in a phone interview.

Amazon's expansion of its shipping and logistics operation may increase competition with European courier services such as Royal Mail and TNT Express. The web retailer is reported to be seeking to establish a global delivery network that controls the flow of goods from factories in China and India to customer doorsteps in New York and London.

Sellers using the service will pay the local fulfillment fee of the market where their products are bought. In the first quarter, more than 50 per cent of Amazon vendors in the EU sold goods in multiple EU countries.

BLOOMBERG