Former Brazilian E-commerce Giant Americanas Undergoes Restructuring: O2O Model to Become Strategic Focus

[Ebrun Exclusive] July 5th, Brazilian retail giant Americanas, which was previously embroiled in an accounting fraud investigation, has announced the formal launch of a business restructuring to rebuild market confidence.

The company, which long ranked among the top three in Brazil's e-commerce market share, stated that its operational streamlining has been preliminarily completed. In the first quarter of this year, it returned to positive adjusted EBITDA, and the net loss from continuing operations narrowed by 24.8% year-on-year. Physical stores contributed 95% of the company's net revenue.

Americanas's restructuring is first reflected in its scale adjustment.

Since entering judicial recovery proceedings in January 2023, the company has closed over 400 physical stores, reducing the total number from approximately 1,880 to about 1,448. The company's strategy is to streamline operations, focusing resources on businesses considered strategic assets while exiting less profitable segments.

Concurrent with the scale adjustment is a shift in its business model.

Before the crisis, Americanas had been actively developing its Marketplace platform, attempting to expand its e-commerce scale by attracting a large number of third-party sellers. Now, the company has repositioned its digital business as an extension of its physical stores.

In May this year, the company's CEO stated in an interview that Americanas will continue to retain its Marketplace business in the future, but will focus on partnering with a select number of large sellers, requiring partners to have robust logistics systems and high levels of customer service.

He explicitly stated, "Our strategy is not to have 200,000 or 300,000 sellers like other platforms."

Currently, the company is strategically focusing on the O2O model, which involves linking online orders with offline stores through in-store pickup and direct shipping from physical stores.

Management pointed out that the profit margin for this model is approximately three times that of the traditional Marketplace business, hence the decision to allocate more resources in this direction.

Under this new positioning, physical stores not only serve sales functions but also act as logistics and fulfillment nodes for digital orders, more tightly integrating physical retail with e-commerce operations and effectively reducing operating costs.

This shift is directly reflected in the revenue structure: in 2025, physical retail accounted for 95% of Americanas's net revenue, up from 91% the previous year; during the same period, the share of digital business revenue decreased from 7% to 4%.

Data shows that as of the end of 2025, the company had 1,470 stores, including 906 standard stores and 564 Express convenience stores. The company has 44 million active customers, with physical stores, the official website, and mobile applications collectively receiving approximately 90 million monthly visits.

Americanas had previously stated that it would further enhance its omnichannel capabilities and improve the user experience of its digital business.

Regarding external partnerships, at the end of 2025, Americanas announced a strategic collaboration with another Brazilian retail giant, Magazine Luiza, where Americanas will sell products on Magazine Luiza's online platform to enhance their competitiveness against major e-commerce platforms like Mercado Livre and Shopee.

Americanas management believes this collaboration has yielded positive results and stated that it does not rule out pursuing similar partnership models in the future. The company's CEO commented on this, saying, "The partnership with Magazine Luiza is continuously expanding, and we have found a way to compensate for all the 'shortcomings' of both parties."

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