As Black Friday draws near, Amazon China on Friday opened a pop-up shop that will last for 10 days in Sanlitun, Beijing’s most international and glitzy shopping area. It will exhibit overseas products and aims to seize attention from Chinese shoppers.
The pop-up’s exterior resembles a gigantic Amazon parcel held together with black tape. Inside the “package” is a wide variety of items, from fine tableware to international brand shoes, all exhibited with QR codes by the side, from which viewers can extract a code to purchase online.
The trend of more sensible consumption, or what domestic industry players call a “consumption upgrade”, has been catching on in China over the past few years. In the past, many consumers only bought cheap and poor quality products. Now more and more wealthy “connoisseur” shoppers buy finely designed products, which are mostly from overseas.
Chinese shoppers demonstrated their massive online purchasing power during what has been dubbed “China’s Black Friday”, the Singles’ Day shopping festival. During this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, online transactions in China totalled RMB 180 billion (USD 26 billion), the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC announced on Thursday. Alibaba is the biggest winner, achieving sales totaling RMB 120.7 billion in value.
It is worth mentioning that consumers bought not only physical products, but also services, including trips and hotel accommodations.
In late October, Amazon launched Amazon Prime services in China, setting the initial annual fee at RMB 188, after which users pay RMB 388 per year. Amazon Prime users in China do not need to pay freight for all domestic orders and international orders worth more than RMB 200.
Still, China’s cross-border e-commerce is dominated by local players, including Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall. Amazon must hold its own against enormously strong competitors if it wants to catch up in the China ecommerce race.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)