New Markets and New Opportunities
BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China. These countries have four of the fastest developing economies in the world. In fact, within the next 10-15 years, the combined economies of the BRIC nations will be larger than those of the G7 countries.
And who are the G7 countries? The U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. Do those look familiar? They should. All of these countries have their own Amazon venue. Collectively they currently hold about 66% of the world’s wealth. But that’s changing thanks to the BRIC nations.
Let’s take a look at how Amazon is starting to expand into the BRIC countries. And if you’d like to learn even more about selling globally, email us!
Comparing of Kindle Catalogs
Amazon.cn vs. Amazon.com
Comparing the catalog sizes for Amazon.com and Amazon.cn, we see that there is still a lot of room for Amazon China to grow before it has the same volume of products as Amazon.com. It’s an excellent opportunity for 3rd-party sellers to add items to the Amazon catalog in China.
Brazil
Brazil is a unique Amazon venue. Currently only Kindle Books are for sale on Amazon.br.
However, if history is any indicator, we can expect to see a marketplace for 3rd-party sellers open in the next year or two in both media and non-media categories.
Brazilians are finding themselves with increasing purchasing power and unfortunately growing inflation. In the coming years, these factors may encourage many shoppers to turn to Amazon for lower priced goods.
Russia
Amazon isn’t in Russia…yet! But, Ebay has made a recent push into the Russian market with a new and localized Russian Ebay. They’ve seen sales increase by over 220%!
Russians are comfortable buying online. Ozon.ru is the country’s largest ecommerce website, with revenues of over $300 million annually.
As for an Amazon presence, earlier this year, Amazon opened their first Russian office led by Arkady Vitrouk, a former director of a major international publishing company.
India
Amazon India launched recently and currently boasts a catalog of over 17,000,000 books (including 12 million in English) and nearly 15,000 movie and TV titles. Other categories, including consumer electronics are expected to come online soon.
But that’s not the biggest news.
Amazon India is only open to 3rd-party merchants!
Amazon can’t stock and sell its own products because Indian regulations prevent foreign multi-brand retailers from selling directly to consumers online. In the coming years, this lack of direct competition from Amazon, as well as the growing Indian economy, could make Amazon.in a great opportunity for 3rd-party merchants.
China
Amazon China’s marketplace is currently open to 3rd-party sellers. However, selling on Amazon China is complicated by the fact that you’re required to work with a Chinese company in order to get your products to the marketplace.
China is a country with an emerging middle class who have money to spend. However, they’re turning to sites like Taobao and Tmall to make most of their online purchases, with only about 5% of online purchases being made through Amazon.cn. We expect Amazon to be aggressive in their attempts to break into this growing market.