Global e-commerce company, Amazon, will make an exit from China. Only its Kindle and cross-border selling unit will remain in the country.
Several employees of Amazon China are already searching for new jobs with Alibaba, Xiaomi, and various start-ups and retail companies.
However, employees are not very hopeful about cross-border trade continuing for long.
During 2014, it was hoped that with cross-border e-commerce gaining momentum, Amazon would be able to achieve success, given its expertise in global selling and supply chain. However, it failed to succeed and was overtaken by Alibaba and JD, as well as cross-border e-commerce star-ups such as Xiaohongshu, NetEase Kaola, and Ymatou.
Amazon had entered the Chinese market through the acquisition of Joyo, online Chinese bookseller, in 2004, for $75 million. In four years time, Amazon’s China market share was roughly 15.4 per cent. In 2011, the Company underwent rebranding to become Amazon China.
Last year, however, Amazon China’s market share dipped to 0.6 percent, as per a report by research firm, Analysys International.
Despite Amazon bringing its Prime Membership services from the US to China in 2016, it failed to succeed in the face of stiff competition from Alibaba and JD.com.
Amazon is not the only one that failed to establish itself amidst local competitors and also government interference. Google, Facebook and eBay are also amongst those who met the same fate.
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