Amazon is shutting down its online retail store in China

Photo: Christian Wiediger/Unsplash.com

Guess we'll have to stick with Taobao and JD then

Whatever you're looking to buy, chances are that domestic e-commerce giants like Alibaba and JD will have it, along with big sales and regular, large-scale shopping events. For an e-commerce site that isn't as aggressive in its marketing, competing can be close to impossible. And according to CNBC, that's now one of the main reasons why Amazon will be stepping out of the Chinese marketplace and shutting down its domestic online retail service in mid-July of this year.

After acquiring local books, music and video retailer Joyo.com in 2004, Amazon.cn was considered one of the more reliable online shopping platforms, according to CNBC's report. But in recent years, as Chinese-owned e-commerce started combatting counterfeit goods and gaining reliability, Amazon’s appeal began to fall, with its market share dropping to less than 1 percent last year, according to China-based market research firm Analysys International. Holding the lion's share? Alibaba's Tmall and JD.com, with a combined 81.9 percent share of China's entire online market.

Shoppers in China will still be able to access the site’s global store and Amazon's cloud service will also continue to operate here. But, just like other big international companies like Google and eBay, Amazon has proven that the Chinese market is a difficult one to crack.

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