Amazon predicts thriving future for high street retail hand in hand with e-commerce

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Amazon predicts thriving future for high street retail hand in hand with e-commerce  Amazon VP Mariangela Marseglia discusses ‘The Everything Store’ and the major trends hitting the retail industry right now.   READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/06/23/we-are-not-a-killer-amazon-sees-future-for-high-street-retail-hand-in-hand-with-e-commerce  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00The world is much more complex than the way it is described sometimes.

00:04They are divinely discontent.

00:06When your customers are happy, your business tries.

00:14Hello and welcome to The Big Question,

00:17where we speak to the biggest names in business

00:19about some of the most pressing issues on today's agenda.

00:23And today I'm thrilled to be joined by Mariangela Marselia,

00:27Vice President EU Stores at Amazon.

00:31Mariangela, thanks for coming on the show and welcome.

00:33Thanks for having me.

00:34So, first of all, talk a bit about Amazon's impact on the European economy.

00:40Very often you hear that Amazon is kind of killing high street commerce.

00:44What are some of the key stats?

00:46It's actually the opposite, if I may,

00:48because we are, I think, a big force for support of the European economy.

00:55Only in 2024, we invested 55 billion euros in the European economy.

01:01To put things in perspective,

01:03this is more or less one quarter of the budget of the European Union,

01:08just to give an idea.

01:10This translates, of course, in a significant impact on GDP.

01:13And independent companies have estimated that

01:16the impact that our investments generate are more or less 41 billion euros,

01:21which is the economy of Latvia or Estonia.

01:25That is a huge number.

01:26And talk a bit about the number of employees.

01:28How many people are Amazon employees

01:30and where are they located and concentrated?

01:34Right.

01:34So, we do employ 230,000 people, permanent employee, full-time jobs in Europe.

01:42Huge number.

01:43In the EU27, so excluding the UK, this number is 150,000.

01:50And these are jobs from all types of background,

01:54from entry-level jobs in logistics

01:56to very high-qualified engineers that work with AI and robotics.

02:01What I'm particularly proud of is that we create jobs

02:05in areas of the continent where it's needed the most.

02:10For example, north of France is a good example and a recent one.

02:14This was a region that had a very strong heritage in industry

02:19but suffered from deindustrialization.

02:21And in this region, we created over 3,000 jobs.

02:25These are lives.

02:25These are people that were born in the north of France

02:28that could make a life in the north of France,

02:30didn't need to move in other parts of the country.

02:33And when we hear these stories,

02:35we are very proud of what we are doing in Europe.

02:43As Amazon has grown,

02:46we can now buy almost anything anywhere across Europe

02:51and have things delivered to our home.

02:55What is the environmental impact of this model

02:58compared to delivering to a store where people need to go?

03:05There are independent studies that show that actually e-commerce

03:08has between 1.5 and 2.9 lower impact

03:13in terms of greenhouse gas emissions compared to real commerce.

03:16Why is that?

03:17The reason is that we use technology

03:19to optimize our supply chain,

03:22our delivery routes, etc.

03:24And this saves multiple trips to a store.

03:27So basically, it takes out cars from the street

03:30and eventually produces less greenhouse gas emissions.

03:33Do you see the relative decline of high street commerce

03:37and the emergence of e-commerce

03:39as a sort of natural development of the industry?

03:43I think we should work backwards from what customers do.

03:47And customers are not either high street or e-commerce.

03:52They do both.

03:53So my view is that e-commerce

03:55and traditional retail should coexist.

03:58Because this is what customers want.

04:01They want to have the optionality

04:03to shop wherever they want,

04:05wherever it is more convenient for them.

04:07So I don't envision a dystopic future

04:10where e-commerce will kill high street.

04:13I do see a present and a future

04:15where e-commerce and traditional commerce will coexist.

04:19We do have physical shops in the US

04:21and even in the UK, for example.

04:23And still, we have a very good and strong online business.

04:27The world is much more complex

04:29than the way it is described sometimes.

04:31How has e-commerce changed the habit of shopping?

04:37And how do you see that developing?

04:38We have over 127,000 small and medium European business

04:43that thrive thanks to Amazon.

04:45And we are not a killer.

04:47We are actually an ally, a catalyst for the growth.

04:50People buy what they need.

04:52Not more, no less.

04:54They buy everything.

04:55And this is why we call us the everything store.

04:58So it is a very convenient way

05:01of accessing a vast variety of goods.

05:05And it is also an opportunity for companies

05:08that sometimes don't find space

05:11on the limited shelves of offline stores.

05:14When I started working in Amazon,

05:16I was managing the book business, for example,

05:19and we offered on our infinite shelves

05:22millions and millions of books,

05:24including foreign language books

05:26and books hard to find.

05:28And normally, these items don't find a space

05:32in a regular bookstore.

05:34So it is really complementary to traditional retail.

05:37Are you noticing any trends among customers?

05:40They want to be able to buy everything

05:42and with a speed and a level of service

05:45that is really surprising them,

05:49keep on surprising them.

05:50And what was surprising when I started this job 15 years ago

05:53in Amazon is not surprising anymore.

05:55They are divinely discontent.

05:58And this is what keeps us on our toes.

06:01So when I joined Amazon, I'm Italian,

06:03so the post service was three, four, five days.

06:07And when Amazon started and provided

06:09to prime customers shipping in two days,

06:11that was bloody fast.

06:13Now, if you tell customers,

06:15I'm going to ship you in two days,

06:16they will say, really?

06:18So they want same day.

06:19And so the bar keeps on increasing

06:21and we need to stay current to that

06:24in order to delight our customers.

06:26When your customers are happy,

06:28your business is fine.

06:29These days, everybody's talking about

06:30artificial intelligence.

06:31I want to do that too.

06:32Yes.

06:33How is AI changing the way you operate?

06:37Yeah, well, AI is everywhere

06:39and is in everything that we do

06:41and has been for the last 25 years.

06:44It was not generative AI.

06:46It was more machine learning.

06:47But in everything we do,

06:48from logistic processes

06:50to the way we present our products

06:53to our customers,

06:54AI is everywhere.

06:55One of the big trends in this very moment

06:57is AI and personalization of shopping.

07:00What this means is that customers today

07:04can ask our personal assistant, Rufus,

07:06hey, Rufus, I'm a tennis player,

07:10not a professional one.

07:11I used to play quite well 10 years ago,

07:15but I haven't played anymore

07:16in the last 10 years.

07:17Can you please recommend me

07:18a good racket that I can use?

07:20And in a matter of seconds,

07:22Rufus provides three options

07:24that are exactly the options

07:26that customers need.

07:27So very personalized shopping experience.

07:29What this does is that it allows this person

07:32to save money and save time.

07:35Big win, I think.

07:36So AI is there to change the way we shop,

07:40the way we do everything, basically.

07:42All right.

07:43Mariangela Marselia,

07:44Vice President, EU Stores at Amazon.

07:46Thank you so much for this conversation.

07:47It's been a pleasure.

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