RetailTechNews’ weekly Amazon watch brings you some of the company’s biggest moves from the past seven days, analysing how the giant is revolutionising the retail space. In this week’s edition: Google & Carrefour Could Hurt Amazon; Premier League Deal’s Ramifications for Retail; and Microsoft Takes Aim at Amazon Go.

Google & Carrefour Could Hurt Amazon

French grocery giant Carrefour has announced a partnership with Google, with the first grocery shopping experience through Google interfaces expected by 2019. These ‘interfaces’ will include Google Assistant, Google Home, and the new Google Shopping website in France.

The deal comes at an interesting time in the French grocery industry, with Amazon having signed a distribution deal with Carrefour’s rival, Casino, in April. However, there is a difference between the two deals: whereas retailers partnering with Amazon leverage the tech company’s logistical capability, those that deal with Google already have their own. As such, Google’s play in the grocery scene is one of digital-enablement partner, not distribution supplier.

While the Google-Carrefour deal may not represent direct competition for Amazon’s partnership with Casino, you can bet that Amazon was a factor in their rival’s partnership. Amazon’s Alexa is the most popular smart speaker on the market today; and as voice commerce continues to rise, retailers will look to forge alliances with Amazon to ensure they can maintain their customer reach.

As the owner of the second most popular voice assistant, Google Home, Google cannot sit idly by and watch as Amazon builds these relationships and tightens their grip on the voice-commerce market. Therefore, a partnership with one of the world’s largest retailers, which will gain them invaluable experience in building out retailers’ ability to sell through voice assistants, will help make the battle for control of the voice-commerce market all the more intriguing.

Premier League Deal’s Ramifications for Retail

Amazon has struck a deal with the Premier League to screen 20 matches a year for three seasons, from 2019/20 to 2021/2022. The deal will mean that Prime members can stream these matches, as well as weekly highlights of all matches throughout the season.

This is a move that will help Amazon grow its Prime business and, through this, tighten its grip on the wider retail industry. While football fanatics, who watch games every week on Sky or BT Sport, will not switch their deals, as they will want to avoid limiting the amount of matches they can view, casual football fans will see this as a more viable option.

What’s more, those with even a vague interest in football, who are on the fence about becoming a Prime member, but don’t feel the fast shipping, streaming, and deals offered to Prime members justify the price point, may be swayed by this latest addition to Prime’s arsenal.

Retailers that are looking to engage Premier League fans will also see partnering with Amazon as a way of ensuring they can target this group, all within one convenient platform. As Prime’s membership grows, the number of its retail partners will naturally grow accordingly.

Microsoft Takes Aim at Amazon Go

Microsoft is working on technology that would eliminate cashiers and checkout lines from stores, in a nascent challenge to Amazon’s automated grocery shop.

Reports from those familiar with the matter say that Microsoft is developing systems that track what shoppers add to their carts. The company has shown sample technology to retailers from around the world and has had talks with Walmart about a potential collaboration.

The move helps Microsoft compete against Amazon Go, the concept store that is causing retailers and payment tech providers to rethink what the future of Western stores will look like.

It is likely any product produced by Microsoft would be welcomed by brick-and-mortar retailers that are looking to mitigate the impact Amazon is having on their industry. As Microsoft is not a retailer itself, they would not use the data collected from consumer transactions in a directly competitive way to the retailer within which the system is installed. On the other hand, Amazon could take this data to hone their private-label brands, helping them disrupt yet more verticals within retail and cutting the margins of retailers with whom they are currently partnering.