Amazon’s Strategy in China

Chinese consumers still strongly desire Western goods such as electronics, shoes, shampoo/beauty products, diapers, and nuts. Western products are a byword for quality in China.

A collaborative report between the Wall Street Journal and other business intelligence firms reported that Amazon.com Inc. has already extended its product lines into more CPG (consumer product goods) including nuts, baby food, vitamins, coffee and diapers. These new brands are named Mama Bear, Wickedly Prime and Happy Belly, and they are reported to have become Amazon’s Prime exclusives. Amazon’s CPG private label strategy seems to be focused on Jessica Alba’s ‘The Honest Company’ products. The Honest Company manages its channels to Target, Costco and Wholefoods and other specialty stores.

Top-selling items on Tmall

According to an analysis from ChannelAdvisor which works with retailers and branded manufacturers on import and export channels from and to China, the top strategy for western brands that are selling to China is to open a store on Alibaba’s Tmall. To understand the purchase practices in China, they closely monitored the sales made by 100 different U.S. brands and retailers that sell on Tmall while also analyzing the top products sold by those.(See below)

Top 10 Western Brands Selling on Tmall

It appears that these top brands are mostly selling electronic devices, shoes and CPG.

Top 10 Western Brands Products Sold on Tmall

Here as well, we can notice that the top products remain the same, electronics, shoes, and CPG, which are quite obviously connected to the ten best western brands that sell on Tmall. Taking a closer look unveils that Chinese consumers have an unsatisfied demand for such western brands’ products. This is a real opportunity for further expansion from these brands, including Amazon which is ranked in the top 5 with the Amazon Kindle virtual shop, selling Kindle voyage e-reader devices.

Amazon’s Grip

In August 2004, Amazon settled on the great Chinese market through the purchase of Joyo.com ($75 million) an online bookstore, providing Amazon kindle with a new marketplace in China. As seen previously, Amazon Kindle is ranked in the top 5 of western brands on Alibaba’s Tmall. Joyo.com was later renamed Amazon.cn. The American lead retailer is building its strategy around Tmall platforms which are the most obvious online gateways to China. Amazon closely analyses relevant data on what Chinese consumers are willing to buy and what needs are unfulfilled. Through the distribution of CPG goods by their three humorously named brands Mama Bear, Wickedly Prime, and Happy Belly, Amazon is probing the Chinese market and working its way up the sales charts. Amazon could decide, later on, to rename these companies Amazon Diapers, and Amazon CPG making these private label brands even more noticeable.