New Regulatory, Competitive Waves Hit E-Commerce 监管和竞争冲击电子商务领域
Turbulence continues to pelt China’s e-commerce sector, with new reports showing how rampant competition is pushing up costs as an industry regulator gets looks into anti-monopoly claims against top online mall operator Taobao Mall. A new foreign media report cites the top executive at luxury e-commerce site Xiu.com saying that rents for the massive warehouses required by most online merchants have soared in the last year, as players like 360Buy and Wal-Mart-invested (NYSE: WMT) Yihaodian all vie for facilities near major cities where they can store and then ship their goods. (English article) Global e-commerce leader Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has joined the fray, announcing last week that its China operation was opening a 120,000 square meter facility in the city of Kunshan, not far from Shanghai, quadrupling its warehouse space in the affluent Yangtze River Delta region. (previous post) The soaring warehouse rents are just the latest headache for the overheated e-commerce sector, where most major players are already hemorrhaging money as the industry heads for a much needed consolidation that is likely to come by the middle of next year. Meantime, domestic media report the Commerce Ministry is entering the e-commerce fray by launching an anti-monopoly investigation into Taobao Mall, Alibaba’s B2C operation, in response to merchant complaints that the online mall operator used its dominant position to unilaterally force a massive fee hike on its merchants, leading many small- and mid-sized sellers to rebel. (English article) I personally think this latest Commerce Ministry investigation is a bit misguided, as there’s plenty of competition in the e-commerce space though less so in the online mall sector. If the ministry really wants to chase someone for anti-monopoly violations, it should focus on online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), which controls nearly 80 percent of the market.
Bottom line: Soaring warehouse rents are the latest sign of overheating in China’s e-commerce space, which is also facing the threat of increasingly heavy-handed regulation by Beijing.
Related postings 相关文章:
◙ Amazon Name Shift Signals China Ramp-Up 亚马逊改名背后折射中国野心
◙ Albaba Faces New Assaults From Merchants, 360Buy 阿里巴巴受到中小商户和京东商城的双重夹攻
◙ China Regulors Threaten E-Commerce, Group Buying 官方监管威胁到电子商务与团购业务
