In brief: Amazon plans to fight back against Shein and Temu by launching a new section on its website featuring low-priced fashion and lifestyle items from Chinese sellers. The rival selling platforms have been gaining popularity in recent times due to their incredibly cheap prices on a huge number of items, and Amazon wants to ensure they don’t steal any more of its customers.
Amazon announced the storefront at an invite-only conference for Chinese sellers this week, reports CNBC. It will enable them to ship their items directly to US consumers, allowing Amazon to compete with Temu and Shein.
While their products might not always offer the best quality, the variety of cheap goods offered by Temu and Shein has seen more people sign up to the marketplaces recently.
Headquartered in South Korea, Temu is owned and operated by Chinese retailer PDD Holdings.
Founded in Nanjing, China, in October 2008, and with headquarters in Singapore, Shein has been the world’s largest fashion retailer since 2022
Amazon’s low-price storefront will feature a variety of unbranded items, many priced under $20, according to an Amazon presentation shown to sellers. An example of the items it will sell appeared in a mock-up of the storefront showing a gua sha facial massaging tool, arm weights, and phone cases.
The items will ship directly from China to the US, with the aim of delivering within nine to 11 days. Amazon sellers in China previously used the Fulfillment by Amazon service to send goods to warehouses in the US before they are delivered to buyers.
Amazon never said when it intends to launch the storefront, but the presentation notes that it will start accepting products this fall.
Amazon said the number of Chinese sellers on its marketplace grew by 20% year-on-year in 2023. The number of Chinese merchants with sales over $10 million also increased, by 30%.
A survey of 7,000 American teenagers in 2022 ranked Shein as their second favorite e-commerce website. Its low prices, along with its strategy of predicting and testing fashion styles, and strong social media marketing, help it appeal to Gen Z consumers in the US. Like Temu, it also sells PC parts, as Linus Tech Tips discovered.
