It looks like Amazon’s attempts to attract Chinese shoppers to items being sold by merchants in the US, Japan and UK are paying off. Apparently, since inception in 2014, Amazon China’s overseas shopping service has seen 17 million items being bought by Chinese shoppers from overseas.
Amazon have created a specific web service for Chinese sellers who want to get their hands on coveted Western goods. It’s called Haiwaigou, which literally translates as “buy from overseas” in Chinese. And that site showcases more than 10 million items from Amazon’s US and UK marketplaces predominantly with product descriptions and customer service provided in Chinese.
What’s popular? Brands and fashion goods, needless to say, are very popular with Chinese shoppers but it seems like baby and child products are the real sweet spot. This could be driven by the recent relaxation of China’s one child policy.
It’s reported that 90% of sales of the children’s products on Amazon.cn consist of items from overseas brands like Pigeon from Japan and the American Wyeth.
In the grander scheme of things, 17 million items is quite a minuscule number when considering the otherwise enormous scale of Amazon but it’s encouraging that the trend of the Chinese buying from the West now makes the exchange of goods a two-way street.
But is it only big, well-known brands here that will be making hay? Have you had success selling consumer goods to China?
