Amazon joins forces with Hangzhou to encourage more Chinese e-commerce merchants to sell in overseas markets

US e-commerce giant Amazon and authorities in the eastern province of Hangzhou, where Alibaba Group Holding is headquartered, have joined forces to encourage more Chinese merchants to sell overseas on the platform, as online merchants look to external markets amid weaker consumer spending at home.

Amazon and the Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone on Wednesday jointly launched a new campaign at an industry conference in the city, under which the two parties will look for and help new merchants based there to develop their businesses on Amazon.

Through the campaign, Amazon and the Hangzhou pilot zone will select 30 Hangzhou-based merchants and provide them with a series of support measures, including year-long training on cross-border e-commerce operations from Amazon and subsidies for trademark registration and marketing campaigns from authorities.

“Seven years after the establishment of the Hangzhou pilot zone, we found that the number of medium-sized merchants has been increasing. We want to help them move from the waist to the head,” Wu Changhong, director of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot division at the Hangzhou Bureau of Commerce, said at the conference.

Qualifying merchants should be registered as a merchant on Amazon within six months or be registered before the end of March 2023, and need to be based in Hangzhou, added Wu.

The move in Hangzhou comes amid efforts by Amazon to boost its share of China’s cross-border e-commerce market, as domestic e-commerce giants, such as Alibaba, and local authorities step up encouragement for Chinese merchants to sell their products in overseas markets.