Amazon Sees the Future for High Street Retail alongside E-Commerce

Amazon VP Mariangela Marseglia says that brick-and-mortar and online retail can coexist and thrive together as consumer habits evolve.

Even though Amazon is accused of the demise of high street shopping, is it so? In 2024, Esprit shut 56 stores throughout Germany, Ted Baker closed all 46 of its outlets in the UK and Ireland, and France’s Casino Group pulled the plug on 768 underperforming locations.

And in the future, will there be other closures? Mariangela Marseglia, who is the director of Amazon's EU stores, disagrees. E-commerce and conventional trade will coexist in the future, according to her predictions. Consumers use both e-commerce and high-street shopping.

In this edition of The Big Question, Euronews's Stefan Grobe and Marseglia discuss the European retail landscape and Amazon's impact on it. Marseglia states that the firm has to continue satisfying the needs of both online and in-store retailing.

She also acknowledged that online shopping, such as Amazon, is excellent when you want to find a niche product or something rare that you will not see in a brick-and-mortar shop. When she started at Amazon, Marseglia said she was in charge of the book division.

And they had millions of volumes on their endless shelves, including hard-to-find and foreign language books. It is also a great supplement to traditional retail because these things typically don't find a place in a typical bookstore.

Marseglia also mentioned Morrisons, a UK grocer that has successfully coexisted with Amazon alongside their physical stores and their own online delivery business. It appears that Marseglia also lives by her philosophy.