Amazon has notified sellers that it’s closing down its Chinese marketplace and will stop providing seller services on Amazon.cn from July 18, 2019.
Sellers in China will still be able to sell on Amazon outside China, according to Amazon.
The global e-commerce giant told KrASIA that it is going through “operational adjustments” in China and will “continue to invest and grow in China across Amazon Global Store, Global Selling, AWS, Kindle devices, and content.”
“We are reviewing the impact on our fulfillment and logistics network in China due to this business transition,” said a company spokesperson.
The withdrawal of one of the world’s largest online retailers from the world’s largest e-commerce market is hardly a surprise – Amazon’s online store has failed to compete with local companies such as Alibaba’s Tmall and JD.com.
Alibaba’s Tmall dominated the Chinese business-to-consumer market in the fourth quarter of 2018 with 61.5% and JD.com, the runner-up, took 24.2% market share, according to Beijing-based data consultancy Analysys. Amazon, meanwhile, accounts for merely 0.6% of the vast Chinese e-commerce market
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
