As the overseas "Singles' Day" and "Black Friday" sales season approaches, a batch of Chinese brands that have long been at the top of the Amazon platform are significantly increasing their inventory on Alibaba's AliExpress platform, drawing industry attention.

According to Observers Net, the brands increasing their inventory on AliExpress cover multiple core categories, including ROCKBROS洛克兄弟, known as the "King of Riding" on Amazon, SYMINO, the "Chair King," COMHOMA, the "Sofa King," Alpicool, the "Car Fridge King," and smart cleaning brand ILIFE. These brands are representative enterprises in their respective fields.

Taking the cycling equipment brand ROCKBROS as an example, its inventory reserved for AliExpress has increased by more than double this year. Alpicool, a car fridge brand, revealed that since 2025, over 10,000 products have been sold on AliExpress, far exceeding expectations. Therefore, the inventory before this year's "Singles' Day" has been increased to three times that of previous years.

ILIFE, which mainly sells robotic vacuums and mops, has recently adjusted its reserved inventory on the AliExpress platform to 80,000 units, more than double that of last year.

ILIFE's General Manager Miao Qunyi stated that one of the key factors in choosing to increase investment in AliExpress is the platform's operating costs. "The overall cost on AliExpress is about half that of Amazon. The commission rate is 5%-10%, which is about 10 percentage points lower than Amazon. Moreover, manpower input is less than half that of Amazon, and the after-sales rate is relatively lower."

COMHOMA, a functional sofa brand, has shifted a large amount of inventory to AliExpress's "Overseas Managed" model. This model identifies locally shipped products with the "local+" tag, helping to enhance price competitiveness. COMHOMA revealed that in the past year, its sales on AliExpress have grown fivefold, becoming the fastest-growing channel among all channels.

Public information shows that in September this year, AliExpress launched the "Super Brand Global Expansion Plan," introducing the "Brand+" channel, aiming to help brands acquire new growth at a lower cost.

At that time, some media reported that the plan recruited well-known brands, including Tmall brands and major Amazon sellers, enabling merchants to achieve higher transactions in key markets at about half the cost of Amazon. This move is seen as a direct confrontation between AliExpress and Amazon in the global market — competing for mid-to-high-end brands, rather than targeting so-called low prices.

Yanzhi (nickname), the head of AliExpress's brand global expansion business, told Observers Net that Amazon is a larger-scale e-commerce platform that can serve Chinese brands, but at the same time, it also showcases the strength of Chinese brands. Data shows that now Chinese brands account for 60%-70% of Amazon's transactions, providing 40%-50% of the profits, and are a very important presence. AliExpress hopes to help Chinese brands create a second growth curve for global expansion.

The actual effect is evident. In October, related data emerged: since AliExpress launched the "Super Brand Global Expansion Plan" in September this year, a batch of Amazon sellers are gradually transferring their inventory to AliExpress. Since October, at least 10 brands with annual sales of over $1 million have exceeded Amazon in global sales on AliExpress, involving multiple categories such as hard drives, musical instruments, and office supplies.

Later, during the "Singles' Day" launch meeting, AliExpress clearly targeted Amazon, stating that it will use nearly 50% of Amazon's costs to achieve 80% of the user experience, and will comprehensively match Amazon in terms of price, experience, supply, and channels in markets such as Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

To the surprise of many, almost at the same time, Amazon was hit by a large-scale layoff storm. Recently, many sellers have reflected on social platforms that due to the layoff of the Amazon China recruitment team, some recruitment managers suddenly went "offline," creating uncertainty for brands preparing for the sales peak season.

Previously, several media outlets cited sources, stating that e-commerce giant Amazon plans to cut up to 30,000 enterprise positions to reduce costs and offset the cost pressure caused by excessive hiring during the pandemic. This will be the largest personnel adjustment since Amazon began laying off staff at the end of 2022.

Amazon currently has approximately 1.54 million global employees, of which about 350,000 are enterprise positions. If the report is true, the number of positions planned to be cut accounts for nearly 10% of the total number of enterprise position employees. Since the end of 2022, Amazon has laid off about 27,000 people, affecting multiple business departments.

Amazon's layoff measures have made some brands worry that the absence of recruitment managers may lead to communication problems, affecting participation in promotional activities and new product listings. Therefore, under this change, many brands have accelerated their multi-platform strategies.

According to data from commercial analysis media VISUAL CAPITALIST, in 2025, the top three e-commerce platforms by global traffic will be Amazon, Temu, and Alibaba's AliExpress. Chinese e-commerce platforms are increasingly influential in the global e-commerce market.

Among them, Temu expands aggressively with a low-price strategy, while AliExpress focuses on the brand sector. The two platforms are attacking Amazon from both ends, forming a pincer movement against the long-standing market leader.

The 2025 overseas "Singles' Day" and "Black Friday" promotional period will run from November 11 to December 3. Analysts believe that this promotional cycle may become a critical test for AliExpress to continue attracting mid-to-high-end brands and challenging Amazon's core market. With more Chinese brands shifting from relying on a single platform to a diversified channel layout, the competition landscape of the overseas e-commerce market is facing new variables.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7568817294588101183/

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