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Amazon Quits China Market

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Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#61

Post by sjwright »

paganel wrote: post #54
product50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude do some research. They are winning or close to winning in India, South East Asia, Western Europe, Australia, US, Dubai etc.

I'm really surprised about India, that's news to me, I knew about the US and Western Europe situation but that doesn't equate to the rest of the whole world, as I was saying. I have to say that I'm a little skeptical about your claim of them dominating SE Asia, as a quick search drove me to this article from September 2018 [1] where it says that they're about to enter the market in Indonesia (which dwarfs Australia i…

As an Australian I can confirm that Amazon launching here was a hotly anticipated disappointment. Amazon US is (was) far more popular in Australia than Amazon AU is now, for many reasons including price and breadth of product.

In order to force use of the AU site they blocked sales from the US site to Australian customers, which caused endless irritation and frustration.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#62

Post by product50 »

paganel wrote: post #54
product50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude do some research. They are winning or close to winning in India, South East Asia, Western Europe, Australia, US, Dubai etc.

I'm really surprised about India, that's news to me, I knew about the US and Western Europe situation but that doesn't equate to the rest of the whole world, as I was saying. I have to say that I'm a little skeptical about your claim of them dominating SE Asia, as a quick search drove me to this article from September 2018 [1] where it says that they're about to enter the market in Indonesia (which dwarfs Australia i…

Here you go with the source: https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/global-ecommerce-marketpl...

And Amazon is also big in Brazil, Mexico, Japan etc. I think it is suffice to say that my point wrt Amazon dominating global eComm is fairly well laid out. Well, except for "China".

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#63

Post by ma2rten »

PakG1 wrote: post #7

What's with these comments that Amazon couldn't win in China because they didn't play well by Chinese rules? The article paints a pretty compelling picture that the issue is that Amazon couldn't compete well with local companies. If they were that bad at competing, they wouldn't need conflict with the government to fail, failure would be a natural effect of being unable to keep up with local competition.

I think it's a knee-jack reaction. People didn't even read the article, but decided that this is what must have happened.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#64

Post by philwelch »

sytelus wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #3

This is why I don't get why companies--tech giants in particular--kowtow to China in the hopes of getting access to the Chinese market. It will never happen. At least, it won't be open access. You'll have to play by Chinese rules (ie integration with the Great Firewall, storing data in China, probably integration with social credit and so on). Worse, there might be (basically forced) "IP transfer". Even after all tha…

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

The entire Chinese economy has to do with government interference. The scales are absolutely tipped in favor of Chinese companies.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#65

Post by adinobro »

product50 wrote: post #50
PakG1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living and working in China and having experienced Amazon's competitors, yes, that does read completely right to me. Amazon is crushing it at everything back home. I don't hesitate to buy many things from Amazon when at home. But in China, the jd.com and taobao.com experience is way better than what I experience from Amazon when I'm at home.

Well you don't know why they haven't been able to execute quickly. Maybe that approval they need to start a service wasn't given? Maybe the partnership they needed from the local delivery channel was delayed? Maybe the sellers were restricted to sell only on domestic companies?

JD and TMall have about close to 1,000 distribution points in the major cities with at least 10,000 delivery people each. Same day delivery is standard (order before 10am and it arrives by 6pm) for a lot of products. Install and building furniture at your home is also a common feature. Two day delivery is slow.

Amazon isn't willing to invest the money and for most products on their site they still don't stock products locally. Half the time I find products on their site I have to wait 2/3+ weeks for it to be imported.

There is nothing stopping them having local stock but ... they don't.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#66

Post by baybal2 »

paganel wrote: post #44
sytelus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

> why Alibaba etc aren’t bigger in US or Europe given their far more aggressive take on offering huge catelog at lower prices with ultrafast delivery. Alibaba is pretty big here in Romania. One could say that that happens because Amazon isn't officially present on the market, which is true, but neither Alibaba is officially launched, people use it because the stuff on their website is really, really cheap and the cos…

I once knew the guy who was a de facto operations chief for Ali Express from 2010 to 2015. He was saying that he pretty much had to fight with higher ups for them not to purposefully sabotage low end wholesale buyers and vendors.

According to him, his higher ups hated the idea of Ali Express turning into "Cheap Chinese Goods Site®." Just as all Chinese "old boss" types, they had that unhealthy obsession with chasing "high profile" image in everything.

They were fuming about them not being able to enter American market, and that no proper Western brand wanted to play with them.

Few people know, but until Alibaba bought Lazada. Russian market was making Alibaba more profit than all other foreign markets combined, despite them spending zero on marketing there, while American market was eating tenths of megabucks of advertising spendings, and not making a dime.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#67

Post by reallydude »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40
sytelus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

I personally would defer judgement on why Amazon is leaving; Alibaba tends to be the most competitive of the Chinese internet companies, and has a corporate culture very similar to Amazon (frugal, but with 996). But Alibaba isn’t really Amazon’s main competitor, they are much more B2B than B2C, it’s only when you throw in TMall or Taobao that comparisons become more apt. When I was living in Beijing, my wife and I ne…

> But Alibaba isn’t really Amazon’s main competitor (in China)

You mean JD. You could just say "JD" instead of the vague statement.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#68

Post by holoduke »

product50 wrote: post #51
paganel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon has literally won everywhere else in the world I've mentioned it in another comment, too, but Amazon is not present in my Eastern European country (Romania), where Alibaba beats them by a large margin (even though they're also not officially launched here). I've just done a quick search and it seems Amazon is not winning it in Russia either, nor in Ukraine, to say nothing of India. As such, to say that they…

Dude do some research. They are winning or close to winning in India, South East Asia, Western Europe, Australia, US, Dubai etc.

Not here in the Netherlands. Nobody is using Amazon here.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#69

Post by njepa »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40
sytelus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

I personally would defer judgement on why Amazon is leaving; Alibaba tends to be the most competitive of the Chinese internet companies, and has a corporate culture very similar to Amazon (frugal, but with 996). But Alibaba isn’t really Amazon’s main competitor, they are much more B2B than B2C, it’s only when you throw in TMall or Taobao that comparisons become more apt. When I was living in Beijing, my wife and I ne…

I would assume they meant Alibaba Group which is Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba.com, AliExpress, Alipay, Aliyun. Ele.me, Youku etc.

Taobao is pretty amazing. But slightly hard to explain. It is like Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Wish and more in one.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#70

Post by lambdasquirrel »

philwelch wrote: post #64
sytelus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

The entire Chinese economy has to do with government interference. The scales are absolutely tipped in favor of Chinese companies.

One wonders who the dominant player will be in India, or Africa.
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