Quick Take — Amazon is the leading distributor in Europe and the third-largest in the United States

Amazon has taken the lead in European retail in terms of sales volume, narrowly overtaking the German Schwarz Group, which owns the Lidl and Kaufland chains.

This figure is interesting but not entirely clear, as it is not obvious exactly which data it refers to: the report only mentions merchandise turnover (does this include non-food items?).

What is truly interesting is the fact that in the US, Amazon is now the third-largest retailer of packaged food and consumer goods (health and beauty, homeware and pet food): it has overtaken major supermarket chains such as Kroger, placing itself behind Walmart and Costco.

This is not a symbolic milestone, like overtaking Lidl, but a serious warning to European retailers: should Amazon decide to step up a gear, it could become the dominant force in the consumer goods sector.

The latest figures from Amazon in the US place it second only to Walmart: Amazon in the second quarter of 2026: net turnover growth of 20 per cent year-on-year, reaching $200.6 billion

Drafted on 26 July, updated on 3 August 2026

Quick Take — Kroger launches its AI shopping assistant for meal planning

Shoppers can plan a week’s worth of meals, browse recipes and put together a shopping basket that fits a set budget or dietary restriction.

They can also take a photo of a handwritten shopping list or recipe card, or simply paste in a URL, and the tool will find the corresponding products and build a shopping basket in seconds.

The assistant also offers personalised product suggestions and ready-made shopping lists for occasions beyond the everyday, such as birthdays or tailgate parties…

[RELATED: 70% of US shoppers already use AI for shopping and plan to use it more – Report]

Kroger is a supermarket chain and the fourth-largest retailer of consumer goods in the US, after Walmart, Costco and Amazon

Quick Take — In Russia, e-commerce warehouses have become the new targets for Ukrainian drones

In less than a week, four logistics and storage centres belonging to Wildberries, the Russian equivalent of Amazon, have been targeted. These attacks, which have caused at least nine deaths, are disrupting supply chains and undermining the Kremlin’s narrative of victory..

After oil refineries, now commercial warehouses: Ukrainian drone strikes are diversifying their targets and bringing the war ever closer to the daily lives of Russians. For the second time in less than a week, they have caused massive fires at the warehouses of Wildberries, the hugely popular Russian e-commerce giant…. Wildberries, the Russian equivalent of Amazon, which in 2025 handled goods worth almost 3 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, is not equipped to protect itself from drones…

The company, which had a turnover of $27.5 billion in 2023, merged in 2024 with Russ Group, a leading billboard advertising company founded in the 2000s by Rupert Murdoch, which was much smaller (with a turnover of one-tenth). The merger, however, had taken place on an equal footing and had been personally approved by Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin had announced at the time.

Read also: Why the Russian economy is in serious trouble… Below: one of the four e-commerce warehouses destroyed, as reported in *The Wall Street Journal* on 24 July 2026. Drafted on 23 July, updated on 25 July 2026

Quick Take — In Milan, an entire neighbourhood has been left without a supermarket: to do the shopping, you have to walk a kilometre

The closure of the only supermarket in the Sant’Ambrogio I neighbourhood, in Barona, leaves thousands of residents without a local shop. It is the elderly and families who are suffering the most, whilst the local council searches for a new operator…

The Sigma supermarket is located – or rather, was located – within the municipal covered market on Via San Paolino, alongside a chemist’s, a laundrette, a hairdresser’s and a café. This closure further depopulates an already struggling neighbourhood and makes life particularly difficult for the elderly and mothers with young children, who, even on sweltering days, have to travel long distances for their daily shopping. The nearest supermarket is now almost a kilometre away. For many elderly people, going shopping has become a real challenge…

We had already addressed this issue in this article: In Italy, small towns are being depopulated, including their shops: will Amazon Now provide the service in the future?: it seems this is not just an issue for villages but also for cities, such as Milan, where large-scale retail – with or without e-commerce – should play not only a commercial but also a social role…

Read also: In recent weeks, Carrefour Spain has launched a mobile supermarket to combat the decline of local shops

Written on 15 July, updated on 22 July 2026

Quick Take — Walmart, in its biggest deal of the last two years, has acquired an advertising technology company

The retail giant is paying $1.4 billion for Vibe.co, a company that enables advertising via smart TVs…

The acquisition of Vibe.co is Walmart’s largest deal since itbought Vizio for $2.3 billion in 2024. Since then, Walmart has rebranded Vizio as its own brand and integrated Vizio’s operating system into its own-brand televisions already on the market. This week’s deal is a further sign that Walmart’s executives intend to invest heavily to boost the retailer’s advertising business. Some of the executives will be required to stay on for four years to manage the business.

Below is a comparison of Walmart – Amazon comparison on advertising (read ‘How Walmart became an advertising powerhouse, whilst remaining focused on the food, non-food and e-commerce businesses’) which highlights the Bentonville (Arkansas) giant’s lag behind Jeff Bezos’s company, which, moreover, has the advantage of also controlling AWS.

In Italy, it is worth highlighting Selex’s initiative.

Drafted on 24 June, updated on 28 June 2026

How Walmart became an advertising powerhouse whilst remaining focused on its food, non-food and e-commerce businesses

It is a pity that no Italian company has had the scale, but above all the vision, to take on the world in the way these giants have done. In Italy, everyone thought: e-commerce must be self-sustaining. This was the case for Esselunga at home until it had no rivals, but Amazon and Walmart disprove this view. E-commerce is underpinned by other, more profitable sources of revenue