Amazon Permanently Shutting Down Kindle Store?
E-commerce giant Amazon made a shocking announcement. The company relayed its intentions to shut down its Kindle store.
In 2023, Amazon will permanently close its ebook store for patrons in China. The tech company has slowly been moving away from Kindle and other electronic-book markets. Amazon is moving towards more profitable market demographics and has left behind ventures that haven’t been monetarily beneficial.
As announced on the company’s Weibo account, Kindle owners in China will not be able to purchase new books after June 23, 2023. Kindle has already halted selling ebooks to third-party companies like Amazon, which means recent books have not been included online. This differs from Amazon’s JD site, which provides specific ebooks unavailable on Kindle. Though people in China will be unable to purchase new books after June 2023, users will still be able to download previously purchased books to other devices.
Amazon didn’t give a definitive reason for its Kindle shutdown for China users, but many assume that dwindling sales in East Asia have affected the decision. The remaining businesses between Amazon and China, like logistics and advertisement, will stay unaffected by the Kindle close. The tech company has a substantial financial tie to China, so it wouldn’t make sense for Amazon to close off all business relationships with the country. The company backed this claim up on its Weibo post, stating how Amazon has an “extensive business base” in China that it intends to maintain.
Amazon has been offering Kindle readers downloadable books in China since 2013. Once this form of e-commerce began in the East Asian country, it quickly became a lucrative market for Amazon. But over the past couple of years, the demand for Kindle books has drastically gone down, which directed the tech company to shut down its Kindle store for Chinese users.
Other global companies have similarly constrained their business relationship with China due to many factors. Unrelenting and strict COVID policies from the Chinese government have affected businesses in the country like Airbnb, which decided to close its China office last month. Internet censorship has also been an issue for global corporations like Amazon and LinkedIn that require more leniency.
Amazon’s removal of the Kindle store from Chinese users comes after years of dwindling traffic from the East Asian country. In 2019, Amazon saw a massive drop in user purchasing due to the prevalence of other e-commerce competitors. Chinese residents started leaning towards different sites like JD and Taobao for domestic purchases, leading to Amazon ultimately shutting down its local market businesses. Users in China can still purchase items transnationally through Amazon but cannot buy products shipped within the country. Though the tech company dedicated time and energy to transforming its business practices to meet China’s standards, users found other sites better equipped to handle domestic shipping.
Amazon is a global powerhouse, shipping purchases rapidly and efficiently all over the world. Even with its popularity, it can’t sustain profits in every marketplace demographic. The Kindle e-store in China is an example of the tech company’s dwindling user base in one specific area. Amazon continues to focus on cross-border selling to Chinese consumers, even with the removal of operating certain e-commerce businesses within the country.
