Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Quits China Market

pandaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 316 posts

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#131

Post by manigandham »

mrb wrote: post #129
manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

I don't think the Chinese government had any role in destroying Amazon's business. In fact we can find counter-examples to your theory as there are foreign companies very successful in China: https://www.1421.consulting/2018/06/successful-foreign-compa...

The Chinese govt didn't destroy anything, they just won't let them compete. This is not a secret conspiracy, it's public knowledge.

Those counterexamples are just companies operating in China, of which there are many. There's no problem unless they try to become major players which will never happen. Ikea is the biggest and has recently come under pressure for simply suggesting that Taiwan is a separate country through packaging. This is tightly controlled market, you don't just wander in and do whatever you want.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#132

Post by hurrdurr2 »

ajross wrote: post #115
intuitionist wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you counting Shenzhen as part of Guangzhou? Surely it’s a center of the Chinese industrial economy. And while they might not be industrial centers, there are tens of millions of middle-class Chinese in places like Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing who presumably order stuff online sometimes.

I'm sure lots of people order stuff online, even in Tibet. I was asking for support for "two day shipping is no great shakes" upthread, which frankly I don't believe given the size of the country and the nature of its transportation grid.

You have no idea how developed China's internal shipping is.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#133

Post by mtw »

manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

> China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector.

I don't know about this. Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, Boeing, Apple and many others are ahead of their Chinese peers in China. It sounds like you're just using a blanket statement from reading various online articles without even how it's out there.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#134

Post by cromwellian »

baybal2 wrote: post #108
cromwellian wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The density only partially helps, because there is still an overhead in even a single delivery that has to be paid. I'll give you an example, 饿了吗 will deliver food for 5-10 RMBdelivery fee in Shanghai. I would often order say, 生煎包 for 8 RMB and pay 5RMB delivery. A guy on a delivery bike would take like 15-30 minutes to deliver, and I often noticed they only delivered one order in my condo (his bike had nothing else…

The lunch delivery market is not what I meant, but more conventional ecommerce. I know for sure that in that market, companies do make break even. In Russia, we had same day delivery even in very first eCommerce site back in nineties, and even e-groceries. That was just much a much smaller market, and the fact that 90% of country's economy was in Moscow back then was helping. China today is not much different with 5…

Not currently, but I've lived there long enough to partake in its O2O/e-commerce/wechat lifestyle :)

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#135

Post by [deleted] »

product50 wrote: post #32

Amazon has literally won everywhere else in the world. But in China they were slow at execution? Does this read right to you? Or maybe there is a regulatory angle which no one is talking about because...China.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#136

Post by manigandham »

mtw wrote: post #133
manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

> China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. I don't know about this. Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, Boeing, Apple and many others are ahead of their Chinese peers in China. It sounds like you're just using a blanket statement from reading various online articles without even how it's out there.

I've been there, worked with people there, have friends there building businesses for decades. Have you been out there?

Companies are allowed to operate and grow, but they are tightly controlled. Apple has strong competition and has already trimmed prices and revenue targets. China just purchased 300 planes from Airbus instead of Boeing. McDonalds sold off 80% of its China operations to a Chinese stated-owned company years ago because it had trouble adapting its menu. KFC in China is owned by Yum China and headquartered in Shanghai.

The world is not some free-market paradise. Territorial rules are everywhere. You'll encounter them just to do business in local counties within a state like New York. China's government has incredible power and control and has far more impact than you might think.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#137

Post by mooreds »

contingencies wrote: post #26
ConfusedDog wrote: post #12

As a person have actually used TaoBao, JD, and Amazon.cn, I can tell Amazon.cn was far behind them on both execution and product variety. I only have a vague impression of China's rules imposed on business, if they did, for sure Amazon was screwed so badly it didn't move a single inch over the past few years. Literally done nothing at all to compete. I'm not surprised they gave up.

Never used z.cn but saw a few neighbours ordering from them in Shenzhen. Probably recent tech books in English I guess. I did try AWS in China and it was absolutely shocking . Clearly they never prioritized China and the inevitable happened. I run a business in China, it's not easy but it's interesting.

AWS in China is not run by AWS:

"To provide the best experience for customers in China and to comply with China’s legal and regulatory requirements, AWS has collaborated with China local partners with proper telecom licenses for delivering cloud services. The service operator and provider for AWS China (Beijing) Region based out of Beijing and adjacent areas is Beijing Sinnet Technology Co., Ltd. (Sinnet), and the service operator and provider for AWS (Ningxia) Region based out of Ningxia is Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology Co., Ltd. (NWCD)."

https://www.amazonaws.cn/en/about-aws/china/

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#138

Post by Leary »

manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

"This has nothing to do with communications or product development. "

And yet the users in this thread have repeatedly said that there are major product differences between Amazon and its Chinese competitors, where the alternatives offer much better value propositions to their customers.

In addition, Amazon is having trouble in many countries other than China.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#139

Post by munk-a »

manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

Amazon has severe product development issues for their goods marketplace, up here in Canada the wind is saying that Amazon's quality is always somewhat questionable with white-labeled resellers that are offering goods available through AliExpress or Wish but at a steep markup. Amazon has shifted from a company that sells highish quality goods of a wide variety to selling goods of random quality of that wide variety which simply can't compete with the markup they're placing on their products. Again, I only know Canada's market over the last few years, but Amazon doesn't really bring a lot to the table - concurrently their cloud services are pretty good... but becoming indistinguishable from their competitors and their price transparency and customer support is crap.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#140

Post by xvector »

Leary wrote: post #138
manigandham wrote: post #124

This has nothing to do with communications or product development. China will not let a non-Chinese company ever gain top position in any sector. That's how the government works. And yes the article is bullshit because this same government won't allow any negative press about their actions either. These Pandaily journalists will have a very hard time if they actually wrote about the real environment there.

"This has nothing to do with communications or product development. " And yet the users in this thread have repeatedly said that there are major product differences between Amazon and its Chinese competitors, where the alternatives offer much better value propositions to their customers. In addition, Amazon is having trouble in many countries other than China.

> there are major product differences between Amazon and its Chinese competitors,

Because the Chinese counterparts are government propped.

Post reply on HN