The Price of Dominance: How China Redefined Global eCommerce

"You come at the king, you best not miss." - Omar, The Wire

In 2024, the ground shifted, and the West could no longer pretend otherwise. China didn’t just disrupt eCommerce—it took control. Platforms like Shein and Temu weren’t interested in playing by the old rules. They rewrote them.

Make goods faster. Ship them cheaper.

Offer unrelenting value to shoppers who cared about one thing and one thing only: price. The results were staggering. In just two years, Temu—a platform nobody outside China had heard of—became the second most-visited eCommerce site in the world. Shein, meanwhile, turned fashion into a cold, mechanical process where trends went from idea to checkout faster than TikTok could finish a viral dance.

For Amazon, Walmart, and the rest of the Western giants, this wasn’t just competition—it was humiliation. Shein and Temu didn’t bother with branding, loyalty schemes, or grandiose promises about customer experience. They sold products at prices so low they forced everyone else to stop and take notice. Temu, especially, was relentless. It operated like a digital bargain bin that never ran out of stock, flooding the market with goods so cheap that competitors looked slow, indulgent, and out of touch.

Amazon, the reigning heavyweight of eCommerce, couldn’t ignore it. So, for the first time, it followed someone else’s lead. Amazon Haul—a blatant response to Temu—abandoned the company’s prized Fulfilled by Amazon network to ship goods straight from China. The logic was simple: beat Temu at its own game. The reality was harder to swallow. Amazon, the company that spent billions training customers to expect two-day Prime delivery, now found itself peddling $1 trinkets that took weeks to arrive. It was a bold experiment but a revealing one, too—proof that even the giants of industry stumble when the ground shifts beneath them.

The message of 2024 couldn’t have been clearer: price wins. Faced with economic uncertainty, consumers stopped caring about ethics, environmental concerns, or supply chain transparency. They just wanted more for less.

Shein and Temu didn’t just understand that—they exploited it. Amazon sells many of the same products Temu does, but its prices are weighed down by fees for fulfillment, duties, and a veneer of reliability. Temu stripped all of that away and passed the savings to its shoppers. The formula was ruthless, and it worked.

While Amazon and Walmart grappled with China’s advances, TikTok Shop quietly became the most powerful player in social commerce. It didn’t sell products the old way. It made consumers feel like they were discovering them. A well-timed video, a familiar face, and a simple tap were all it took to convert a moment of curiosity into a purchase. TikTok didn’t reinvent eCommerce; it turned trust into the most valuable currency. A viral clip from an influencer carried more weight than a thousand search results, and no ad campaign could match the urgency of a trending video. TikTok’s revenue in the U.S. fell short of its lofty goals, but no one doubted its impact. The platform changed how consumers find and buy products, and that’s what matters.

All of this, of course, came at a cost. The U.S. government finally noticed what was happening and set its sights on the de minimis threshold—a loophole that allowed Temu and Shein to ship untaxed goods under $800 into the country. Politicians made noise, but the platforms barely flinched. Shein and Temu had already begun shifting production out of China, hedging their bets and proving, once again, that they could adapt faster than regulators could react. “Made in China” is no longer the story. It’s the model that matters, and that model is here to stay.

Amazon and Walmart spent the year holding their ground, but it wasn’t always pretty. Walmart leaned hard on its physical stores, delivering billions of items same-day and reminding everyone that brick-and-mortar still matters. Amazon, meanwhile, turned to its advertising business—a reliable, high-margin operation that now makes more money than most companies dream of. At times, it was hard to tell whether Amazon was a retailer or an ad network that also sold goods. Profits looked good, but cracks were starting to show.

And then there was Artificial Intelligence. It was the buzzword of the year, the darling of corporate presentations, and the technology that promised to solve every problem. Amazon launched Rufus, an AI-powered shopping assistant designed to make purchasing easier. It didn’t. Instead, Rufus became a punchline. It got answers wrong, offered irrelevant suggestions, and generally reminded everyone that AI is still a work in progress. It can be smart, occasionally useful, and mostly clumsy—more of a novelty than a necessity. AI will get better, but 2024 proved it’s not ready to replace humans in the messy business of shopping.

By the end of the year, eCommerce didn’t feel as unstoppable as it once did. Growth slowed to a fraction of its pandemic peak, and the competition for every dollar intensified. Amazon, Walmart, Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop now account for more than half of all eCommerce growth, leaving little room for smaller players. The so-called “eCommerce winter” wasn’t about collapse—it was about survival.

The lesson of 2024 is this: platforms don’t succeed because of technology. They succeed because they give people exactly what they want. Right now, that’s value.

Shein and Temu proved that speed isn’t as important as price. TikTok Shop showed that trust doesn’t come from logos—it comes from people. Amazon demonstrated that even the best companies can lose their footing when forced to play by someone else’s rules.

Chinese platforms aren’t followers anymore. They’re leading the way and forcing everyone else to catch up. The question isn’t whether incumbents can adapt. It’s whether they can still lead.

Because in 2024, people didn’t just buy things online—they bought things because they saw them online. For those bold enough to understand that and move fast, the future belongs to them. For everyone else, it’s already too late.