Chinese consumers covet foreign goods, and Amazon China has been feeding that demand by offering a growing selection of products from Amazon.com Inc.’s global e-commerce sites.
Chinese online shoppers have ordered 17 million items from Amazon’s overseas sites since the global e-retail company launched its cross-border e-commerce business in October 2014, Amazon reported recently.
That business, called Haiwaigou, which means “buy from overseas” in Chinese, features more than 10 million items from Amazon’s e-commerce sites that Chinese consumers can buy on a special section of Amazon’s Chinese-language site, Amazon.cn. In the past year, Amazon has added selections from its U.K. and Japan sites to the goods from the retailer’s U.S. site, Amazon.com.
Amazon is No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, which ranks North American retailers by online sales, and No. 5 in the China 500, which ranks retailers operating in China by their web sales in that country.
International brands are especially popular in certain categories. For example, more than 90% of sales of children’s products on Amazon.cn are of items from such overseas brands as Pigeon from Japan and U.S. brand Wyeth, according to Amazon.
Thanks to successful social media marketing, sales of several global brands surged in the first quarter, Amazon says. Sales of car seats, for example, have grown significantly.
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