Title from Visual China
Of course, Amazon hasn’t “quit” China. Yesterday (November 25), Amazon said it would open a “flash” store on the Chinese e-commerce trading platform Pinduoduo. The store will operate by the end of December and provide about 1,000 products from overseas.
Amazon and Pinduoduo, one is a global e-commerce ancestor who has encountered a wall in China, one is from the low line, and broke the unique force of the domestic e-commerce pattern at an unimaginable speed. When the two names Appeared in a cooperative news, has begun to make people think.
Amazon’s back and forth
When referring to Amazon right now, the second half must be “Exit China.” In April of this year, Amazon announced that it would shut down its domestic e-commerce business and stop providing services to third-party sellers of Amazon’s China website. However, it was ignored that Amazon also said it would increase sales of goods and cloud services to Chinese buyers from abroad. And other business attention.
The issue of Amazon’s “exit” in China has caused everyone’s pity, and the reason has also been ridiculed, and the analysis is very clear. Mainly due to insufficient strategic and insufficient localization. To put it bluntly, its copy of foreign play to China has lapsed. In terms of self-operated goods and services, Amazon has not accurately matched the needs of the Chinese market.
Take the category first, what Amazon can provide, according to data, Amazon’s previous focus was digital, electronics, and daily necessities, while Ali mostly non-standard products such as clothing. The home appliance 3C category has JD.com on the side, and the non-standard category has a Taoist department, and the space for Amazon to compete has been shrinking.
In addition, Amazon does not look very friendly to sellers, especially small and medium-sized sellers. Amazon China’s focus is on the brand, which has further squeezed the survival space of small and medium-sized stores, which has also led to the “small store” has been in a weak position in the Amazon operating system. For example, Amazon has a rigorous complaint system against sellers, and penalties and thawing procedures often make sellers endless.
Some media have summarized that Amazon used the “negative evaluation rate below 1%” and “24-hour response rate” as indicators to evaluate suppliers. Once the negative evaluation rate is higher than 1% or the seller fails more than three times Reply to the buyer in time, the store will be closed directly, manual changes cannot be made, and the appeal channel is very difficult. This approach was a bit out of place in China’s e-commerce market, which was once very cost-effective.
Differences with foreign markets, Amazon, which has entered China for many years, has not adapted.
However, Amazon China’s website has closed the channels for domestic merchants to settle in, and obviously it has not closed the door to cross-border e-commerce. Amazon will not abandon the huge Chinese market. It is now betting on brands and overseas products, and is back at home overseas, and continues to follow up as an “outsider”. Use self-operated cross-border products to avoid the trouble and category disadvantages of cooperating with small and medium sellers.
Li Yanchuan said recently that overseas purchases and Prime members are the two major engines of Amazon’s cross-border e-commerce business in China and also the differentiated advantages of Amazon China. During the Double Eleven this year, Amazon’s overseas purchase sales achieved year-on-year. Doubled. In short, Changes in strategies for cross-border Haitao products. In the Chinese market, Amazon has to start playing again. The black Friday this week is one of the signals.
Choose Pinduoduo
An Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement, “In addition to the more transactions and tens of millions of items available on Amazon.cn, we look forward to getting customers through this store Stores) to enjoy cross-border shopping. “ Now that it is developing its cross-border business, Amazon’s thinking also includes the use of domestic e-commerce power. Pinduoduo is one of them.
Pinduoduo has announced earlier that this year’s “Black Friday” will continue the Double 11 “No Routine, No Deposit” approach. Its newly established four “Global Overseas Purchase Stations” in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan will Work directly with large foreign supply chains. And the four new “Global Buying Overseas Stations” on the Pinduoduo page are displayed as Amazon products.
At the Expo, the person in charge of Pinduoduo Global Purchasing also said when attending related activities that in the next 3 years, Pinduoduo will introduce 10,000 international brands and cultivate more than 100 imported brands with annual sales of over 10 million The annual global sales of cross-border direct mail and bonded goods as the core should exceed 200 billion yuan. There have also been data showing that since the official launch in April this year, the sales volume of Pinduoduo ’s global purchases has increased by 100% month-on-month. Among them, imports of some categories, such as imported mothers and infants, and imported cosmetics, have increased by 200% month-on-month.
Undoubtedly, Cross-border and global purchase business is one of Pinduoduo’s transformation strategies that is getting rid of its inherent image.
Pinduoduo’s 2019 Q3 financial report shows that the platform’s annual active buyers reached 536.3 million, a net increase of 150.8 million compared with the same period last year and a sharp increase of 53.1 million from the previous quarter. The average number of monthly active users of the Pinduoduo APP reached 429.6 million. This is an increase of 197.9 million compared to the same period last year and an increase of 63.6 million compared to the previous quarter.
Traffic data looks very optimistic. However, in the recent Double Eleven, Pinduoduo did not produce any powerful battle reports in the expectation of the outside world. There are many speculations in the outside world that “the data is not performing well and cannot be “Compared with two other 200 billion transcripts.” For Pinduoduo, if you want to work hard on turnover data, a good story like working with Amazon is just needed.
After all, compared to Taoism and JD.com, the biggest problem for Pinduoduo is that it does not have a mature e-commerce supply chain system and a sufficiently recognized brand. Considering today’s competitive environment, the low price is the lifeblood of Pinduoduo, and it is also necessary to complete more acquisitions and maintenance of large brand companies to increase their customer unit prices and user trust and retention issues.
Black Friday, cross-border … Plenty of these keywords coincidentally coincide with Amazon, which is seeking new opportunities in China. The global e-commerce giants took the ship of a lot of promotional activities, and the giant also stooped for the traffic and China’s existing e-commerce context.
At present, Amazon has not seen further cooperation with Amoy and JD. Of course, Amoy and JD both have their own cross-border business, and they still stand at the two ends of the cross-border goods competition with Amazon. Today, Amazon’s efforts to increase cross-border business may also intensify the competition between each other. Under such circumstances, coming from the low-end market requires a lot of word-of-mouth reversal and branding momentum, which may be the best. select.
This flash promotion, which lasts only one month, may not see anything. But this Black Friday is the first after Amazon ’s strategic “retreat” and focuses on cross-border products. Battle, I hope both sides can get what they need.