DHL to get Fresh in Germany?

After a week of rumors of massive aircraft orders by Amazon (denied by Amazon) and rumors of an Amazon/DHL hub share agreement at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport (confirmed by Amazon and DHL), will your eyes glaze over if you see another round of Amazon/DHL rumors?

Well, unglaze those eyes, because here is the round three. And this rumor is fresh. As in Amazon Fresh.

Yes, according to German business daily Handelsblatt, DHL will be the exclusive provider of delivery services when Amazon rolls out its Amazon Fresh online grocery shopping service in Germany next month.

Quoting “sources in the industry,” the Handelsblatt report said: “Amazon had originally planned to organize delivery for Amazon Fresh by employing multiple logistics companies. But apparently DHL made them an offer that was so appealing financially that Amazon couldn’t refuse.”

DHL already delivers packages for Amazon in Germany, so this isn’t a big breakthrough in the relationship between the two. And DHL is already the biggest provider of deliveries for online grocery shoppers in the country (mostly through its own allyouneedfresh site) so it’s not a breakthrough into this market. However, given that the online grocery-shopping business looks ready to grow explosively, this deal puts DHL in a strong position to capture an even larger share.

You can read the full Handelsblatt report here, but briefly, Germans buy about €200 billion worth of groceries every year, of which about 1% is bought via e-commerce. DHL expects that to increase to 10% by 2022 – equivalent to a jump from a €2 billion market today, to a €20 billion market in five years.