Dive Brief:
- 62% of Chinese e-retailers sell goods on Amazon, and almost all of those retailers are selling in the U.S., according to a recent study by Payoneer, a provider of e-commerce payment services.
- The study, which surveyed 900 e-commerce sellers in China and Hong Kong between January and March, cited Amazon’s high-quality products and “simple and fair rules” as the primary reasons Chinese sellers prefer the online marketplace. Sellers also like that they can upload and sell products on the same day with Amazon, as opposed to lengthier processes in other marketplaces.
- Over half of the sellers surveyed said they prefer to sell on two marketplaces at the same time, according to the study, which also showed that 45% of respondents sell on Wish; 40% sell on AliExpress, Alibaba's international marketplace; and 28% sell on eBay.
Dive Insight:
China is the world’s largest e-commerce market—last year, sales by Chinese retail websites grew 33.3%, totalling over $589 billion worth of goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics in China. This makes China an essential piece of Amazon’s strategy to beat competitors like Alibaba and Wish on a global scale.
Amazon, which opened up parts of its marketplace to Chinese sellers in 2012, has recently taken steps to better market its services to Chinese consumers and retailers. Chinese sales on Amazon’s marketplaces doubled from 2014 to 2015, according to Internet Retailer. Top-selling products included wireless devices, apparel, computers, home decor and outdoor merchandise. In 2015, some observers forecasted the end of Amazon in China after it opened a store on Alibaba’s Tmall, but the move has instead helped Amazon boost its profile in the country.
If Amazon is now the preferred global online marketplace for Chinese sellers, that means increased competition for American and European retailers, who may need to lower their prices to compete with Chinese manufacturers. Philip Rooke, CEO of Spreadshirt, a German T-shirt printing company, told Internet Retailer his company is already being undercut by copycat designs on Amazon. Nearly half of those surveyed by Payoneer reported that the rising number of Chinese retailers is the biggest challenge they face in selling on e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon.
