Amazon has reported that since Amazon Lending launch they have issued more than $3 billion in loans to 20,000 marketplace sellers in the US, UK, and Japan. In the last 12 months alone, Amazon has loaned more than $1 billion. We expect the lending volume to continue to rise, because Alibaba has been doing similar work since 2004 and has reached scale way beyond Amazon Lending - $100 billion in loans already.
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In the Toys & Games category on Amazon.com 8 out of the Top 10 products are currently fidget spinners. Many have dismissed the fidget spinner as a fad, including the top toy makers. But they missed the point of what made this toy so successful. It was successful exactly because it was a fad. The fidget spinner as a product is showcasing what the modern retail is going to look like. It is important to not think about this as trends catching, but as a challenge to set up companies to be agile in product making.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global estimates the global counterfeit market at $461 billion. Every year over $50 billion worth of products are sold on Amazon marketplaces by third-party sellers, yet none of those billions of products are controlled by Amazon. The problem of counterfeit is much bigger than Amazon, but the marketplace model and the number of visitors of Amazon makes it one of the most lucrative places to move products through.
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Just 10 years ago e-commerce penetration in China was less than 1 percent, but since then has taken off - it overtook US in 2013, and is expected that by the end of 2018 it will reach 18 percent market penetration.
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China's e-commerce market represents almost a half of e-commerce sales worldwide, and practically all of it is on domestic websites like Tmall.com and JD.com. Most of the largest e-commerce markets in the world have Amazon and eBay with major market share, but not in China. Many would jump to the conclusion that China is a market favoring local players and US companies have no chance. But this is not the whole picture. Both Amazon and eBay could have had much more market share in China.
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Given the recent change in the US government, and policies yet to come, the question of how big of a role China plays in Amazon business is very interesting. The takeaway from this research is not the exact percentage of Chinese sellers. It's the fact that there are more Chinese sellers than one might assume, they are very competitive because of FBA, and the ratio is no doubt growing.
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India will eventually become the second largest e-commerce market in the world, overtaking US in the next 10 or so years. There are four players in the Indian market: Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Paytm. However the market is shifting towards only three: Flipkart-Snapdeal, Amazon, and Alibaba-Paytm. Recent Alibaba investments into Paytm took its stake to over 50%. And Flipkart-Snapdeal merger seems to be just a matter of time.
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We looked at the top eBay US stores to see where they are located. We found that roughly 30% of the top 10,000 sellers are based in China.
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China's e-commerce market is larger than any other country's in the world - it represents almost a half of e-commerce sales worldwide. While US retailers on Amazon are starting to feel the competition of Chinese competitors, the question is how is this competition going to go the other way.
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Alibaba Group generated sales of $17.8 billion on Singles Day this year, up 32% from 2015. That's more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined across all US retailers.
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