Amazon will be opening a pop-up store in China via e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, the company announced on Monday. The pop-up store will run till the end of the year and will offer a wide array of foreign products to Chinese customers.
Understandably, Amazon wants to change its marketing strategy in China amid growing threats from domestic e-commerce giants like Alibaba and JD.com. Amazon, earlier this year, stopped operating its marketplace in China for domestic retailers.
Amazon changes strategy for China
The pop-up will remain open till the end of the year and will offer around 1,000 foreign products to Chinese customers. Amazon had earlier this year said that it would focus on selling overseas goods in China through its other businesses like cloud services instead of operating a marketplace for domestic products.
"The Amazon Global Store pop-up store on Pinduoduo provides customers with a curated selection of about 1,000 overseas products with competitive prices, authenticity guarantee and convenient shipping," an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement.
Pinduoduo is one of the leading e-commerce platforms in China that allows users to participate in group buying deals. Amazon will now target to woo Chinese customers with hundreds of products.
The appeal for foreign brands has been rising in China over the last few years, which has seen a number of American brands opening production units in that country in recent years.
China in focus
The e-commerce giant had been long trying to make a significant presence in the China market. However, it has been facing stiff competition from home-grown players and brands like Alibaba's Tmall and other e-commerce giants like JD.com.
So much so, that Amazon in a bid to compete with Tmall, decided to launch a store on the online platform in 2015. However, the world's biggest e-commerce company has still found it difficult to capture a significant market share in the world's second-largest economy.
Amazon so long had been selling Chinese products in the country but now plans to shift focus and stress more on selling overseas brands.
Pinduoduo is only a four-year-old company, on the other hand, has been giving stiff completion to the likes of Alibaba and JD.com with lucrative deals. The tie up with Pinduoduo is a strategic move by Amazon to use the platform's reach and popularity in expanding its footprint in the Chinese retail landscape.
