Amazon Opens Store on Alibaba's Tmall for Chinese Shoppers
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg Business :
Context & Ripple Effects
By early 2015, Alibaba had been systematically converting Western retail interest into traffic for its marketplaces: weeks before this story, it struck a deal to handle payments and shipping to China for US stores including Saks and Macy's, positioning itself as the turnkey route into Chinese consumption.
Amazon opening a Tmall storefront is the sharpest expression of that arc — the world's largest Western e-commerce company choosing to rent shelf space inside its chief rival's mall rather than compete head-on in China, a template later used by Kroger's Tmall Global storefront and reinforced by Alibaba's brand partnerships with P&G and Macy's.
First-order effects
- Amazon gains immediate access to Alibaba's massive base of Chinese shoppers without building local logistics, payments, or merchant relationships of its own.
Second-order effects
- Alibaba strengthens its case as the default cross-border gateway for Western brands, making it easier to sign the next wave of US retailers — the pattern that produced Kroger's later Tmall storefront.
Third-order effects
- If rivals keep selling through its malls, Alibaba's platform becomes shared infrastructure between US retail and Chinese consumers, shifting competition from who owns the customer to who owns the channel.
The trend: Western e-commerce companies are increasingly reaching Chinese consumers by listing inside Alibaba's marketplaces instead of operating their own storefronts in China.