Amazon to start selling beauty and personal care in Brazil

31-Jan-2019 - Last updated on 31-Jan-2019 at 16:24 GMT

Amazon has confirmed that it will start selling beauty and personal personal care products online, in a market where competition in the category is already highly competitive.

Last week the digital retailer announced that it would be expanding its presence in the country by selling 120,000 products across 15 categories, which will include products some of the biggest brands operating in the Latin American region.

The company has been selling books and digital items in the country for several years, but it has now taken the decision to use its massive global presence and brand name to enter what is already a highly competitive category.

Amazon puts the foundations in place

At the beginning of last year the company announced that it was building a 50,000 square meter operating warehouse in the Sao Paulo city area, tapping into the country’s most economically advanced and industrially developed region.

Building on that, the company announced in October of last year that it was entering into an agreement with a Brazilian trucking company called CargoX, essentially setting the infrastructure up from which to build its retailing business in the country.

Although the company is entering into the digital retail market belatedly, the timing might not be too bad as it continues to recover from the economic downturn of 2015 to 2017 and economists have reacted positively to a new right-wing government.

Building on its existing presence

The company is now planning to move into the biggest consumer goods categories, which in addition to beauty, will also include toys, baby products, clothing and health rpdoucts.

"Amazon has been delighting customers since we started selling books in Brazil several years ago, and today marks an important milestone for us. We're excited to greatly expand selection for Brazilian customers," said Alex Spiro, head of Amazon Brazil.

"With today's expansion, we are deepening our long-term commitment to Brazil and our customers."

Entering a competitive market

But the digital retail landscape is already highly developed and competitive in Brazil, with MercadoLivre, CNova and B2W Digital already carving up significant proportions of the market.

Likewise, in the beauty and personal care category competition from digital and direct retailers is already firmly established.

In particular direct seller Avon has a huge presence in Brazil, while home-grown player Natura also has a well developed digital retail presence.