SAN FRANCISCO/SHANGHAI ¨C Amazon.com Inc. plans to close its domestic marketplace in China by mid-July, people familiar with the matter said, focusing efforts on more lucrative businesses selling overseas goods and cloud services in the world¡¯s most populous nation.
Amazon shoppers in China will no longer be able to buy goods from third-party merchants in the country, but they still will be able to order from the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan via the firm¡¯s global store. Amazon expects to close fulfillment centers and wind down support for domestic-selling merchants in China in the next 90 days, one of the people said.
The move underscores how entrenched, homegrown e-commerce rivals have made it difficult for Amazon¡¯s marketplace to gain a foothold. Consumer insights firm iResearch Global said Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.¡¯s Tmall marketplace and Inc. controlled 81.9 percent of the Chinese market last year.
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