Amazon to market Chinese goods in 185 countries

Chinese merchants will soon be able to sell their goods in 185 countries and regions through e-commerce giant Amazon's online marketplace, state media reported today at Beijing.

Amazon signed a deal with a cross-border e-commerce pilot zone in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, to let traders use its site to sell to its 285-million active paying customers worldwide. It's global logistic network will deliver goods from China to 185 countries and regions, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Cross-border sales account for nearly one fourth of total revenue from third party merchants in Amazon's global marketplaces. The number of Chinese traders there doubled in first quarter from a year ago. Zhejiang province is looking to cross-border e-commerce to shore up trade, which shed 0.9 per cent in the first four months. Exports edged up only 0.3 per cent in the same period. E-commerce has offset much of the slump in traditional exports.

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Recently, a study by global research firm Ipsos, Amazon was ranked as 8th most influential brands in the Country. Google ranked on the top and was followed by Facebook, Gmail, Microsoft and Samsung in the top five – all of which are foreign brands. While another foreign brand WhatsApp is sixth on the India’s top 10 most influential brands, Flipkart is the top ranked Indian brand at seventh place.

In China, e-commerce companies have tied up with grocery stores to leverage them for last-mile delivery for a long time. For instance, Alibaba incorporates a grocer to their network via its app, providing them an additional revenue stream. Amazon has separate retail websites for United States, United Kingdom and Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India and Mexico. In 2011, it professed an intention to launch its websites in Poland and Sweden. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization.