YCD News – New research from Marketplace Pulse shows that Amazon’s U.S. sellers are losing market share to international sellers, now accounting for less than 50 percent.
According to Marketplace Pulse’s research, 48 percent of the top third-party sellers on Amazon’s U.S. marketplace are U.S.-based businesses, the lowest level ever. This compares to a high of 55% in the last two years, which occurred in March 2022.
The majority of sellers on Amazon’s U.S. marketplace are domestic U.S. or Chinese businesses (with relatively few sellers from other countries/regions). Chinese sellers have been increasing their market share on Amazon for years. However, in November 2020, U.S. sellers reversed this trend and started gaining market share due to epidemic blockades, supply chain issues, blocking fiascoes, and Amazon FBA inventory restrictions.
However, this reversal came to a screeching halt in March 2022, returning to the trend of years ago. Since then, Chinese sellers have regained their lost market share and have hit new highs in recent months. In turn, U.S. sellers have hit record lows.
Marketplace Pulse emphasizes that Chinese sellers continue to do well on Amazon, with GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) growing year-on-year, thanks to a very willingness to lay down costs. On the one hand, almost all sellers use Amazon Logistics (FBA) to store and deliver their inventory, which gives their products a Prime badge and better display position on the first page of search. On the other hand, a seller’s business address is only relevant to where the seller employs employees and pays most of their taxes, avoiding many additional taxes.
According to the “Layout Global, Create Long-term Win – 2023 Amazon Global Store China Export Cross-border E-commerce White Paper” released by Amazon Global Store, as of June 2023, nearly half of the Chinese sellers on Amazon are already doing business in 2 or more international sites. Among them, the number of Chinese sellers going live on sites other than the US site has grown by 45% in the past 12 months.
While Amazon shocked the market with its mass suspension of hundreds of top Chinese sellers in 2021, and in recent years emerging marketplaces such as Shein and Temu appear to have offered a new way out, none of these Chinese sellers have exited Amazon. the period between November 2020 and March 2022 is an anomaly. Amazon’s GMV remains the largest, so “Made in China, Sold on Amazon” remains the norm.