Go understand! Amazon is also a strong distributor partner

Forget this commonly accepted story that Amazon kills retailers around the world. The reality is a little more nuanced than that

The current (and increasingly simplistic) scenario for Amazon is as follows: Amazon destroys physical retail as purchases grow over the Internet. The reality is much more nuanced. Amazon is increasingly a partner of physical stores and is often involved in win-win contracts.

What? It's impossible.

And yet. Here are some recent references from quarterly financial conferences of retail banners. These comments were made following strong store sales and generally better than expected results. In simple terms, the retail business is not dead . It's boiling and Amazon, in some cases, even boosts store visits.

Best Buy

Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly launched a product development partnership with Amazon and expressed his optimism about it. Best Buy's second quarter results were strong and the smart home is one of the top reasons. Joly said:

"The third highlight of the quarter is the launch of the first smart TV in our product development partnership with Amazon. This partnership is a good example of how we leverage our unique merchandising, marketing and sales expertise and strengths to help large technology companies market their new products. As a reminder, TVs are only available in Best Buy stores on bestbuy.com and on amazon.com via Best Buy as a third party seller. We plan to launch additional models in September and October. "

Remember how Best Buy should be crushed by Amazon?

Kohl's

Kohl's CEO, Michelle Gass, said an Amazon partnership to manage returns has fired (physical) traffic in the last quarter. Kohl's also has strong earnings and plans to expand its pilot project with Amazon.

"It's a big deal for us and for Amazon. We study it very closely. As you know, when we have taken steps of this magnitude in the past, whether it's our first loyalty test or our beauty extension, we want to make sure that we optimize and succeed. And of course, it's up to us and Amazon to make other decisions. We are very satisfied with the customer's response. It's a frictionless experience. We are delighted and Amazon is very happy with that. But all the elements must work. Operations must work, financial services must work. So we do our best to understand and deepen before making a decision. But we are delighted to have extended the pilot project to 100 stores. This gives us a truly solid data set to make a good long-term decision. "

Amazon

Amazon has expanded a program with Sears Auto Center to sell tires and install them at Sears . Amazon will send the tires to the Sears Auto location with an installation date chosen by the customer. Sears also sells Kenmore brands on Amazon.

At present, Sears is a zombie retailer, but the company is using Amazon for distribution, hoping to offset the decline in traffic in its stores. Sears said its partnership with Amazon has "dramatically expanded the reach" of brands such as Kenmore and DieHard.

Rest assured that Walmart will not partner with Amazon at any level, but the rest of the retail landscape may want to consider at least one coopetition agreement.

The journalistic idea that three things are enough to make a trend is a tired crutch, but in this case, partnerships between Amazon and retailers certainly add more nuance to the idea that the giant e-commerce kills everything on his passage.

Of course, distributors are sinking, but many of them have faced huge debts from redemptions (see Toys R Us). Amazon's role in the retail landscape is much more nuanced than you might think.