TOKYO -- After years of fierce competition in Southeast Asia, Chinese online retailers are gearing up to tap more mature markets in North America and Europe.
Alibaba Group Holding launched a new platform, Miravia, in Spain in December to target middle- and high-income earners, while its AliExpress is struggling to gain traction in the U.S. Rival Pinduoduo is reportedly preparing to launch its Temu e-commerce site in Canada and Spain, following its entry into the American market last September.
Even ByteDance-owned TikTok is getting in on the action: The short-video platform rolled out its TikTok Shop in the U.S. late last year and is also reportedly looking to launch in Spain soon.
The timing of such moves might come as a surprise given the current geopolitical climate. U.S.-China tensions, particularly over tech, are running high, and TikTok specifically has been the target of intense scrutiny from Washington over data security issues.
The presence of entrenched leaders like Amazon in the U.S. and fashion giant Inditex in Spain is another potential hurdle for Chinese challengers. But industry insiders and analysts say there are reasons the strategy makes sense.
Alex Zhang is senior vice president at Xingyun Group, a Shenzhen-based startup that helps Chinese businesses sell directly to overseas consumers. Zhang said the slowing user growth at home is spurring Chinese online retailers to accelerate their overseas push -- and they have taken note of the considerable number of Chinese sellers on Amazon.
Amazon accounts for 37.8% of total e-commerce sales in the U.S., with Walmart a distant second, according to a report by eMarketer in June last year. The e-commerce giant closed about 3,000 Chinese online merchant accounts in 2021 over fake reviews, and some other Chinese sellers started to leave the platform afterward. These merchants may find a new home on marketplaces like Temu or fashion brand Shein, according to Zhang.
