Buying direct from China – a threat to US retail

As if US retail wasn’t in trouble enough with the growing shift toward ecommerce, it’s also under threat from the advent of cheap international shipping, particularly the ePacket arrangement with China. Indeed this arrangement threatens US-based ecommerce companies themselves, not just US brick-and-mortar.

Good article on the topic in today’s NYTimes:

That article focuses on the Wish app, but it could just as well apply to any of its competitors – Aliexpress, Ebay (full of Chinese sellers), Lightinthebox, Banggood, etc., which all offer pretty much the same stuff at the same prices with the same shipping policies.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Notice the complaints Amazon amongst others are lodging against those shipping policies…