Two new Amazon markets are about to open!

Now the peak season at the end of the year has ended, and the orders during the Christmas holidays have plummeted due to the Christmas holidays abroad. The period from Christmas to the beginning of next year is generally the off-season for our cross-border sellers, and it may take until April or May to get better.

Many sellers will take advantage of this period to do some strategic work, such as opening new stores and sites, selecting new products, formulating operational plans for the new year, etc.

Sellers who are planning to expand their business recently, please pay attention. According to the intelligence I have collected recently, Amazon will launch two new sites in the near future ! One is the Netherlands site under the European site, and the other is the Saudi site in the Middle East!

Although there is no official announcement, the information from these two sites is still relatively reliable. I will tell you the source of the information and analyze the feasibility of these two sites.

Netherlands site

Sellers who have a European site backend can also check it out for themselves. The European site backend now not only shows the URLs of the five sites of UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but also has an additional site "www.amazon.nl".

nl is indeed the code for the Netherlands. It seems that the rumor that a new site will be added to the European site in the first half of the year was correct. Amazon has been preparing for the launch of the Netherlands site for at least half a year.

Now that the website address is ready, the Netherlands site may not be far from us, and as a member of the European site, the pan-European plan and product synchronization are definitely inevitable. Once launched, it will bring new markets to sellers on the European site.

As an old developed country, the Netherlands has a relatively mature e-commerce market. In 2018, the total value of the Dutch e-commerce market reached approximately 12.9 billion euros, and the average person spent 1,700 euros on e-commerce each year.

The total market volume is smaller than that of Italy, but the per capita consumption is very high, even higher than that of Germany (1,515 euros per capita) . The reason why the Dutch market capacity is not high is mainly due to the small population, which is less than a quarter of Germany's.

The Netherlands also has its own e-commerce platform, Bol.com, which has been ranked No. 1 in the Dutch e-commerce market for many years, crushing Amazon's share.

However, this situation can be attributed to the fact that Amazon does not have a site in the Netherlands. After Amazon opens a site in the Netherlands, it will inevitably have a bloody battle with BOL for market share.

In summary, due to its small population, the total market capacity of the Netherlands is not large, and the total volume of the e-commerce market is expected to be slightly smaller than that of Italy . Fortunately , the proportion of online shopping in the Netherlands is very high, and they are also willing to spend more money on online shopping , making it a European site that can add icing on the cake.

Saudi Arabia Site

What we are currently calling the Middle East Station is actually the one formed after Souq was acquired by Amazon. It should actually be called the UAE Station (AE). The news that the Saudi Arabia Station will be opened soon was revealed by the investment manager.

Before being acquired, Souq was a multinational e-commerce platform with sales coming from Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other countries. After being acquired by Amazon, it was set up as a separate UAE site. In fact, the largest source of traffic for Souq is Egypt.

Amazon will certainly not let go of the traffic from other Middle Eastern countries easily, so the Saudi station is no exception. It is estimated that the Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and UAE stations will form a complete Middle East station like the European station.

However, the e-commerce market in the Middle East is not ideal. The low consumer acceptance and relatively underdeveloped logistics systems have led to a relatively small e-commerce market in Middle Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia's total e-commerce sales in 2018 were only about US$6.36 billion .

However, just like everyone’s inherent impression of the wealthy in the Middle East, consumers in Saudi Arabia are not sensitive to prices, and the average order value is very considerable.

Because the pie is relatively small, there are currently few sellers in the Middle East station. Like the Netherlands, I think it is also a site that adds icing on the cake. If you already have a UAE site, you can wait and see this new site. Amazon is likely to connect these sites in the future, and Middle Eastern sellers can exchange a considerable additional market at a very low cost.

The two sites exposed this time are relatively new markets. Amazon will need to expand its territory in these places and compete with local e-commerce platforms to grab market share. Sellers who have reached the ceiling of existing sites can seize the opportunity to enter the market, but small sellers are not recommended to test the waters.