Amazon recently worked to launch a new discount marketplace with the cheapest products shipped from China to compete with the likes of Temu and Shein, two well-known Chinese discount stores. According to a report from The Information, the e-commerce giant has recently been seen sharing information with its sellers on the prices it will set for selected products.
The list included 700 items. Other prices include $8 for jewelry, $9 for bedding, $13 for guitars, and $20 for couches. Amazon does not operate a pricing system in its main market, so this is a new approach that it will try in the new store. Products will be shipped from a fulfillment center in Guangdong, China.
Shipping timelines will reportedly be nine to 11 days, and sellers will be charged between $1.77 and $2.05 to ship a four- to eight-ounce item from the facility. The information compares these figures to the $2.67 to $4.16 that sellers pay to ship items of the same weight from local warehouses under Fulfillment by Amazon.
One of the biggest problems with such Chinese stores, apart from the poor quality offerings, is the labor exploitation model they are built upon. The Select Committee highlighted in the report that Temu sends millions of goods to the US every year containing products made by Uyghur Muslims under forced labor. It added that Temu does nothing to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) or any other policies that affect exploitative labor.
As stated in the report, “[…] all companies operating in the United States have a responsibility to clean up their supply chain and ensure they do not contribute […] the genocide of the Uyghur people by facilitating the sale of forced-made goods.” But given the labor model that Amazon already exploits and how abusive it is with its workplace policies, it’s unlikely that it will take a different, more ethical approach with its budget store.
What can you expect from a $20 couch? Bad aesthetics and weak structure. They are often filled with toxic levels of lead as an unethical preservative to enhance color, add heft, and make it rust-resistant. This makes the thought of a $13 guitar method more worrying than it sounds.
Temu and Shein didn’t just make Amazon feel insecure with their explosive success. Last year, TikTok responded to the competition by introducing an in-app purchase function for the US to sell cheap products made in China.
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