Amazon France has “decided to postpone the date of Black Friday”,...

Amazon will therefore not go it alone. After a few hours of silence, the company confirms it: like all the other supermarket chains, the e-commerce giant will postpone the planned Black Friday promotions by one week, a first.

This is what Frédéric Duval, the general manager of the company in France, came to explain at the 20H of TF1. “Today, like other distributors in France, listening to the government’s recommendations, we have decided to postpone the date of Black Friday (…) and therefore this year, Black Friday will take place on December 4.”

The communication issue was high: breaking the sudden sacred union of retail trade in France would have reinforced in public opinion the image of a giant Amazon, American before being French, and deaf to the problems of the country that l ‘welcomes. An untenable position. It is probably with this equation in mind that Amazon made its decision, and came to defend it. For many years, Amazon in France has presented itself as a primarily local company, anchored in its establishments, and in the trade of French brands and retailers.

“On December 4, we will serve all French people everywhere in the country and we will also be a support to all the thousands of VSEs and SMEs who sell through us”, pleads Fredéric Duval. Amazon recalls this very regularly, but this is not just a piece of language in its communication: in fact, nearly half of the company’s turnover in France comes from sales from independent producers and retailers who use its platform.

There is however a question to which the boss of Amazon France does not answer, or just obliquely. As we mentioned recently, if the French version of the site has muted Black Friday ads, and is therefore preparing to postpone the launch of promotions by a week, this thoughtfulness has no effect on other Amazon sites around the world. As we explained a few days ago, Black Friday will take place on the original date of November 27 on Amazon sites in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Great Britain and elsewhere, sites that know how to deliver the France. And nothing prevents a French Internet user from going there to shop without waiting for December 4, even if the advantages of Amazon Prime accounts opened with us do not apply.

To Gilles Bouleau who asks him the question, the boss of Amazon France kicks in touch. “You know, what I want as an Amazon site in France is to support all French businesses and consumers, and I will offer them a Black Friday on December 4 that will allow them to do millions of euros in savings. “ France has managed to amicably postpone a business meeting that the legislator would have been hard pressed to ban. It is difficult to demand the same from all of Europe.