Amazon has no seller marketplace in China but Chinese sellers on Amazon outnumber those from the rest of the world combined. This is never reported on in “State of the Seller” year-end summaries, and a lot of people are completely unaware of this.

A Brief History of Amazon in China

Amazon’s foray into the Chinese market began when they purchased an existing ecommerce retailer, Joyo.com, in 2004 for $75 million (approximately $127 million today, adjusted for inflation). Joyo.com itself had been founded just 4 years earlier in 2000, and sold books, CDs, DVDs, etc; this closely mirrored Amazon’s business model in the West in the early to mid 2000s, so this made perfect sense. Keep in mind, this was in the very early days of Amazon going from being just a bookstore, which it started off as, to the “everything” store you know it as today.

Joyo.com rebranded as Amazon.cn in 2011, after an initial rebrand as Joyo Amazon in 2007 (according to this Statista article). The same report shows what the landscape looked like in 2016, when Amazon China was struggling to grab as little as a 1% market share against some very stiff local competition—including the usual suspects like Tmall (Taobao Mall, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group) and JD.com.

At its peak in 2008, Amazon had only managed to pry only a 15.4% market share away from the competition in China (as reported by Transport Intelligence). So, after the downward spiral from this high point to a market share dwindling to less than 1%, Amazon decided to shutter the marketplace in the region altogether in 2019.

Wait. So, How is Amazon still Big in China?

Whilst we’ve just established Amazon isn’t one of the platforms Chinese brands and retailers use to sell to consumers in China, you would be very wrong to assume it’s been ignored by the country altogether. Yes, Amazon struggled to gain a substantial foothold in the market. You know where it did quite well, though? Pretty much every single other market.

With 310 million active users, it would make no sense for Chinese manufacturers and retailers not to leverage Amazon’s reach as the predominant direct-to-consumer platform for the Western market. Amazon also actively encourages this; if you don’t believe me, see here for the dedicated page on their site aimed at onboarding sellers located in China.

What this means is that in whatever marketplace(s) you are competing in, you are likely up against a good percentage of sellers based in China. Conversely—assuming you are not a Chinese seller—are you, or do you know anyone, selling on Taobao/Tmall, JD.com or Pinduoduo? Most likely not.

Just How Stiff is the Competition?

As early as January 2020, Marketplace Pulse reported that the top Amazon.com sellers from China outnumbered US-based sellers at 49% to 47% respectively. “Top sellers” here were defined as the top 10,000 sellers with annual revenue of $1 million+. This was the first time they had the majority share. Turning the clock back just one year prior, these percentages were 38% (for Chinese sellers) and 57% (for US sellers).

This silent chokehold continued to tighten and in 2024, Chinese sellers at a general level surpassed the 50% mark. This wasn’t considering any specific group like top sellers or those with an annual revenue above a certain threshold; this was generally. To put this in context, please see the chart below, which visualizes data from a SmartScout analysis which ranks, on a global scale, the cities with the most sellers. We will narrow this down to the top 10.

Notice the strikingly apparent chasm between Shenzen and the top non-Chinese location? There are almost 9 times the number of sellers compared to Brooklyn, NYC. And besides only three non-Chinese cities appearing, the number of sellers in Shenzen alone is comparable to every single resident of a city such as Green Bay, Wisconsin being an Amazon seller! These sellers take advantage of low-cost manufacturing and logistics to dominate other markets.

How to Remain Competitive

Though the odds may seem insurmountable, lots of non-Chinese sellers compete and win everyday, making Amazon work for them. I have knowingly left any tariff discussion out of this post because right now, no-one knows what will or won’t be permanent. However, below are some ways sellers manage to stay competitive in a landscape where the cross-border competition is cutthroat:

• Selling the Right Products: It seems too obvious to even mention, but avoid selling products everyone else is selling. Selling the same products with no distinguishing features or unique selling points, where a new competitor could come in and undercut you will make your selling experience difficult. The tip to survival here is having a product that’s unique, can’t easily be copied or is protected by copyright.

• Cultivating a Solid Brand Identity: Having customers recognize, form an attachment to, and become loyal to your brand is a must. This is done through customer engagement on the platform itself and can be done outside of Amazon as well, on social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram. Make shopping with you an unforgettable experience.

• Promoting your Product / Brand: Enhance the visibility and desirability of your products by running campaigns to entice more customers. Amazon also gives you all the analytics and data for the campaigns you decide to run which allow you to review performance, adjust and finetune your strategy as required.

• Staying in Total Control of Your Inventory: There is no quicker way to push customers, even your loyal ones, to seek alternatives than not having what they need from you when they need it. Making sure you always have the right level of inventory, and not eroding customer loyalty and confidence due to stockouts is a major key to thriving.