I've mentioned it in another comment, too, but Amazon is not present in my Eastern European country (Romania), where Alibaba beats them by a large margin (even though they're also not officially launched here). I've just done a quick search and it seems Amazon is not winning it in Russia either, nor in Ukraine, to say nothing of India. As such, to say that they are winning "everywhere else in the world" is not really true, they're only winning in North America and some Western European countries (too lazy to search what really happens in South America or Africa).
It's interesting to see, how Amazon will fare in near future, due to recent change to e-commerce law by Indian govt.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/amazon-how-india-ecommerce-l...
I’d say that’s hyperbole. Neither of them are present here and if I were to guess judging by my own experience, I’d say that Amazon is still more popular.
Do you have hard numbers?
Of course neither of them hold a candle to the local eMag, but that’s only natural.
Slightly OT, I’m also curious how come no analyst is mentioning FB marketplace as a competitor to Amazon.
There are rumors Amazon will open officially soon, but they'll have a hard time if you ask me.
The expected investment also doesn't match Alibaba's, the Chinese have apparently come up with $1.1 billion while Amazon is coming with only half of that value, i.e. $600 million. But maybe they're doing better in Thailand or Vietnam.
In order to force use of the AU site they blocked sales from the US site to Australian customers, which caused endless irritation and frustration.
It seems that the relatively quiet launch and slow growth has been intentional. As long as Amazon maintains a decent level of investment here I think they will continue to grow and possibly eventually be dominant.
Only recently have they ramped up advertising and started putting their listings onto Google Shopping.
And Amazon is also big in Brazil, Mexico, Japan etc. I think it is suffice to say that my point wrt Amazon dominating global eComm is fairly well laid out. Well, except for "China".
Given that, I greatly doubt the veracity of their research.
It was quite startling for someone coming from a relatively small city in a sparsely populations part of Western Canada this was quite a surprise.
I had always assumed that given my remote location people that lived in densely populated regions would be better served by Amazon.
Absolutely disagree, their service is shockingly slow and the limited range is overpriced. They make up about 0.4% of Australian online sales.
I'm not sure where you got this impression from.
Where ? Certainly not in Indonesia, the largest population in south east asia. Nor in singapore, malaysia or philippines.
But I did notice at my last job in The Netherlands that people would often order technical gadgets and the like from Alibaba.
Russia is a very protected hyper nationalistic market, in exactly the same way China is. Their culture is segregated off from much of Europe in terms of being 'westernized.' Instead of westernized, it's a quasi separate, rather differentiated Russian culture (all the way down to the music). It's why Russia has Mail.ru, VK and Yandex, instead of eg Google dominating on search.
Ukraine is a partial extension of what is dominate in Russia, so for example VK and Yandex are very popular in Ukraine as well. Most of Ukraine fluently speaks Russian, and they've been culturally and politically dominated by Russia for a long time. This is why there has been a push by some prominent nationalist politicians in Ukraine recently ("Army, language, faith") to emphasize their own culture and language, and de-emphasize Russian culture and language. If you go to Kharkiv - Ukraine's second largest city, near the border with Russia - the people there often can't speak their native Ukrainian (they can usually read it), everything is in Russian.
Amazon isn't willing to invest the money and for most products on their site they still don't stock products locally. Half the time I find products on their site I have to wait 2/3+ weeks for it to be imported.
There is nothing stopping them having local stock but ... they don't.
Amazon's infrastructure roll out paid off in the United States because there was little competition. They rushed out infrastructure and cornered the online shopping and delivery market. Walmart and the other big stores had an entirely different business model and their warehouses and infrastructure took time to adjust and catch up, with Amazon still in the lead.
In China, the local competitors already have a significant head start on their infrastructure, and Amazon would be playing catch up in a relatively unfriendly market. It could take them forever to recoup the investment, if they ever did.
Unfortunately, they can't compete without that infrastructure in place, so what else can they do but leave?
China is the biggest eComm market in the world! If there was an opportunity for Amazon to penetrate (regulations being the biggest challenge), Amazon would have totally gone for it.
This is a company why, 5 yrs back, committed $5B to India when eComm there was/still is totally burgeoning.
I don't have a ton of experience with UI/UX on JD or TMall, but my experience with alibaba and aliexpress hasn't left me particularly impressed there. But I also have no problem with Amazon's interface and experience in general, which I know lots of people don't like.
Product offerings have never been an issue for me. The overwhelming majority of my online purchases come from Amazon, and the ones that haven't made recently have been pretty niche - handmade Japanese chef knives, limited run board games, manufacturer direct audio equipment...
I can get assembly for furniture, etc., as an add-on for a lot of purchases on amazon, which someone mentioned as a differentiator in another thread.
I can't talk to the merchants instantly, but I don't know that I really want or need to. I rarely have a question for them, and when I have, I generally don't want to get bogged down in a live chat or phone call or whatever, so the email system on Amazon works fine for me.
Correct.
Because that's what this comment thread is about.
Grandparent: >I'm curious is this because jd.com is far ahead of American Amazon or because Chinese Amazon is far behind American Amazon?
Parent: > I would say jd and taobao is far ahead of American Amazon
The question was whether or not JD and Taobao in China are better than Amazon is in America. Not whether or not Amazon in China is as good as JD and Taobao are in China.
Disagree. I live in northern europe and haven't used Amazon since moving here. Every single product is "doesn't ship to your location" etc., there are domestic and local competitors that are superior - to say nothing of the China based suppliers, and of course amazon has sub-par customer service even in the US - but there at least their infrastructure and product catalogue let them carry the day without breaking a sweat.
I'm sure that if you live in a market that is well served by Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de they offer a user experience that's at least broadly similar to that in the US, but e-commerce is an evolving beast. As far as I can tell amazon hasn't changed meaningfully in the last 5 or 6 years (and their website is famously, almost comically, static), only a matter of time before someone else starts beating them at their own game even in core markets.
China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong ( Doesn't even have a presence ) Most of SEA, Australia, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland. all of these failed in one way or another or is in no way the majority online market leader.
One of the problem with online world is that most International news outlet are really US focused and they publish article saying the world when they meant Western World, US focus, EU secondary, and largely ignore Asia, Africa and South America.
They were acquired by the largest super market chain (Albert Heijn), so now you can pick up packages at the super market throughout the day and in the evening. I think both of these advantages are difficult to match by amazon, and they were probably the reason that amazon chose not to enter the Dutch market.
Just because Amazon has 'won' in most places, does not mean they can not be beaten by a player who knows the local market and has better connections.
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[0]: https://www.central.co.th/en/
[2]: https://shopee.co.th
FWIW, Amazon is also quite small in South Korea, which is the #1 country in ecommerce spend per capita.
There, the market is fragmented into many players big and small, and the delivery times are much shorter than in the US. For instance, if you order on Martet Curly before 11pm, you get fresh grosseries delivered the next day in the morning.
Amerikan exceptionalism! In my country, Amazon doesn't even exist. And we use several different ones. The song "We're all living in Amerika" doesn't apply anymore you know?
Amazon isn't some kind of god. If someone else is cheaper, faster and already well established they can be beaten.
Amazon is practically non-existent in Australia.