Schwarz Group, the German company that owns Kaufland and Lidl, recently completed the acquisition of the software company Camao IDS. The deal is being seen not just as a move designed to strengthen the retailer’s online sales, but as an entry into the cloud computing services sector. This would place it in direct competition with Amazon which is just as dominant in that marketplace through Amazon Web Services (AWS) as it is in retail itself. The rollout of Schwarz Group’s new online service has been pushed forward by the coronavirus crsis. The first hint of the move came a year ago when Lidl’s UK digital director Alex Murray spoke vaguely of new ecommerce projects at an industry conference and reports emerged in January that the company could launch UK online services there by summer. The news was first broken by the influential Lebensmittel Zeitung. It’s thought that Apple is also planning to move into the sector, suggesting that cash-rich retailers are looking to take more control of the infrastructure that will form an increasingly important part of their sales infrastructure.
