The “Made in China, sold on Amazon” community plans to reduce their reliance on the world’s biggest e-commerce marketplace, according to a Shenzhen-based trade body, as Chinese merchants expect business conditions to get harsher on the US online retail site amid a crackdown that has shut down more than 50,000 of the group’s stores.
Chinese vendors must seek alternatives because Seattle-based Amazon.com is unlikely to ease up on its campaign against certain practices, such as encouraging customers to write good reviews, according to Wang Xin, executive chairman of Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, a trade body representing more than 2,600 cross-border trading companies in the city that sell products to consumers overseas.
“Amazon is determined to regulate sellers [on its platform], especially after the influx of Chinese merchants in the past few years,” Wang said on Tuesday. “Their rules will only become more stringent.”
The association was established in 2014 by 52 cross-border merchants in Shenzhen, known as China’s answer to Silicon Valley and home to some of the country’s biggest technology companies. The city has more than 40,000 firms involved in the cross-border e-commerce business, which account for about 35 per cent of this sector across China, according to the trade body.