Paul Revere is a legend in American history for his storied horse ride in 1775 in which he warned the colonial citizens, “The British are coming”. Although historians have informed us that this famous story didn’t exactly happen the way we learned as kids, we do forever remember the warning.
Chinese Sellers Invade Amazon
For a few years now, Amazon sellers and e-commerce trackers have been on a similar virtual journey. “The Chinese are coming” is something we’ve been hearing for many years. Most e-commerce sellers have already seen a large influx of Chinese sellers. Many are selling identical products on separate listings and some even hijack or takeover existing listings.
Based on a new story published by Marketplace Pulse, the number of top Amazon.Com sellers is now claimed by our manufacturing partners in China. The story reveals that 49% of all top sellers on Amazon are from China, compared to 47% from the United States. This is an amazing 11% increase from last year.
Make no mistake about this. Amazon.Com is no longer a US-based marketplace. It’s a global marketplace and the land of manufacturing is taking their share of the market at an alarming rate.
Amazon.Com’s “top sellers” are taken from the top 10,000 sellers (all with GMV of over one million in sales). The next level, the Top 50,000 sellers has the Chinese at a 58% marketshare.
Amazon has not hidden their aggressive courtship with Chinese manufacturers. At the annual seller summit in December 2019 hundreds of sellers attended to be wooed by Amazon.
What does this mean for US-based sellers?
It’s really important for US-based sellers to understand that we exist in a competitive, global economy. There is little doubt that they will continue to see increased market erosion as Amazon brings more and more products to their platform directly from overseas manufacturers.
Does that mean it’s time to give up? Absolutely not! It does require innovation and creativity. It’s time to ask yourself the hard questions, such as:
- how can my product stand out from lower cost competitors?
- what value can I bring to the customer that overseas competitors cannot provide?
- what IP protections to I have, and how can I strengthen them?
These are only a few of the lingering questions to consider.
Have you been impacted by Chinese sellers on Amazon? What changes have you made and will you continue to make in order to survive?
