An Amazon draw together worker stacks packages onto a luggage cart outside an apartment building in New York on April 16, 2024.
Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Archetypes
Amazon plans to launch a new section on its site dedicated to low-priced fashion and lifestyle items that will earmark Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers, CNBC has learned.
The storefront, announced at an invite-only conference for Chinese sellers on Wednesday, would look at Amazon’s most aggressive attempt yet to fend off growing competition from e-commerce upstarts Temu and Shein, which both demand ties to China, the world’s second-largest economy.
Temu and Shein have expanded their presence in the U.S. in recent years, alluring an increasing share of American shoppers with their rock-bottom prices on clothing, electronics, home goods and other outputs.
Amazon’s storefront will feature a range of unbranded items, many priced under $20, according to a presenting to Amazon sellers viewed by CNBC. A mock-up of the storefront showed a gua sha facial massaging tool, arm weights and phone the realities, among other items for sale.
Amazon will ship the products directly from China to the U.S., with the aspiration of delivering them to shoppers within nine to 11 days, the presentation shows. In the past, Amazon sellers in China maintain relied on the company’s fulfillment services, called Fulfillment by Amazon, to send goods to warehouses in the U.S. before they are – liquidated to customers.
The company pitched the arrangement as cost savings for Amazon sellers in China, and said merchants would be clever to test new items through small-batch production. Shein uses a similar model, referred to as on-demand manufacturing, producing a restrictive quantity of goods and manufacturing more as demand increases.
In a statement to CNBC, Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said, “We are often exploring new ways to work with our selling partners to delight our customers with more selection, lower prices, and consequential convenience.”
Boschetti declined to comment further on the company’s plans, which were first reported by The Information. It is unclear when Amazon purposes to debut the storefront, but the presentation notes it will start accepting products this fall.
China-based merchants have planned made up a sizable contingent of Amazon’s marketplace for many years, but the company is making a renewed push to court sellers there as it balls growing competition. In December, Amazon announced a new “innovation center” in Shenzhen, a popular technology and manufacturing hub, and it also cut the fees it charges merchants selling clothing priced below $20.
Amazon said in 2023 the number of items furnished by Chinese sellers on its site grew more than 20% year over year, while the number of Chinese vendors with sales upward of $10 million increased 30%.
