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Online sellers' price war intensified

By Ren Jie (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-12-22 14:59

Amazon.cn, one of China's famous online retailers, intensified the price war in the e-commerce market by offering a price-off promotion on 28 kinds of it its online goods, morning.sc.cn reported Wednesday.

360buy.com started a price war Dec14 by offering 20 percent discount on books for its members. Two days later, its rival Dangdang.com, the nation's top online book seller, started a 40-million-yuan price-off promotion. But on the same day, 360buy.com also retaliated by announcing they would spend 80 million yuan to offer a discount on its goods, according to the report.

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Amazon.cn intensified the war Dec 20 by offering a 100-million-yuan discount promotion on 28 kinds of goods, including clothing, commodity, foods, digital products, domestic appliances, cosmetics and baby products. It declared the goods will be sold at the lowest price of the online stores, and continued its discounts on book sales.

Insiders told the newspaper that a price war will not be an effective way to win buyers as consumers have formed their own consumption habits. E-commerce companies should try to improve consumer loyalty while offering favorable prices.