Amazon Offers Chinese Consumers More Overseas Options To Boost Black Friday Sales

Amazon has made efforts to bring more options to local Chinese consumers during the Black Friday sales festival this year to compete with local ecommerce giants including Alibaba and JD.

Amazon's so-called "Real Black Friday" in China allows its members in the country to purchase popular goods from four of its most popular overseas websites, including Japan, Germany, the UK, and the US sites, in sequence.

From 11pm local Chinese time on November 23, Chinese consumers could place orders for the Black Friday sales on Japanese Amazon websites. The next day they were able to participate in sales offerings in Germany, UK and US websites at 7.00am, 8.00am, and 4.00pm local Chinese time, respectively.

According to Amazon's Chinese website, the US ecommerce giant has also offered various incentives to Chinese consumers, including free delivery, up to 52 percent discounts for members, and free new-year gifts.

Amazon will also extend promotions for Chinese consumers to December 2 to allow them more time to place orders from both domestic and overseas Amazon sites.

It is the fourth overseas shopping festival Amazon China has organised for Chinese consumers. Apart from the unprecedented involvement of its popular overseas websites, Amazon China is also allowing its Prime members in the country to purchase more products from overseas websites this year.

The Black Friday shopping spree was just two weeks after the Singles Day shopping festival on November 11 in China, which generated 254 billion yuan ($38.2 billion) mostly due to enormous online sales from Alibaba and JD platforms.

While Alibaba and JD accounted for 66.23 percent and 21.41 percent of the $38.2 billion sales, Amazon China only accounted for 1.95 percent, according to a Sina news report citing figures from local big data company Syntun.

Both Alibaba and JD offered promotions for consumers to purchase from overseas third-party merchants on their platforms during Black Friday, but the discounts and incentives were smaller than those offered during past Singles Days.

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