Amazon will close its domestic e-commerce marketplace business in China, effective from July 18. The company will retain running other business sections in China, including AWS, Kindle e-books, and cross-border operations.
The departure marked an end of the company’s 15 years of a voyage into the China market for their rigid localization in business strategy and management.
“We are notifying sellers we will no longer operate a marketplace on Amazon.cn (the Chinese-language site) and we will no longer be providing seller services on Amazon.cn effective July 18,” the company said in a statement as Financial Times reported.
Amazon developed its presence gently in China after it acquired Joyo.com, a Chinese online shopping website in 2004. Nevertheless, it took Amazon over three years to turn Joyo.com into Joyo Amazon, and an additional four years into Amazon.cn or “Amazon China”. As we all know by now local e-commerce companies such as Alibaba Group and Tencent weren’t on vacation during those years, quite the opposite they were building the foundation for e-commerce 2.0.
Last year, Amazon China’s market share has plummeted to 0.6 percent, according to a research intelligence firm Analysys International. Even though Amazon brought its Prime services from the United States to China in 2016 to better serve the Chinese audience, the international e-commerce giant was never quite able to replicate its triumph in China where big names like Alibaba and JD.com dominate.