Shanghai Municipality, east China - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of cell phone showing Pinduoduo-Amazon shopping application
2. Various of computer screen showing Pinduoduo website
3. Various of Alex Shutter, partner, consultants Oliver Wyman, working with computer
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Alex Shutter, partner, Oliver Wyman (starting with shot 3/partially overlaid with shot 5):
"I think it's a great example of two players at relatively opposite ends of the market looking to create something new that they hope would be very competitive in the market. So here you have a relatively very classic case of an international player who thinks they have great products and services offering that they can bring to consumers. And on the other side, a player who has great access to hundreds of millions of consumers looking to see how they can leverage that and bring a competitive offering. I think what's interesting going forward would be how it evolves from the current pilot that's planned into the next stage. In this case, what I think interesting about the model is the potential scale it could get to."
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
5. Various of staff sorting out packages
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
6. Various of staff working with packages
7. Graphic showing Amazon's market share in China

FILE: Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, east China - Date Unknown (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
8. Various of office buildings at Alibaba headquarters

Shanghai Municipality, east China - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
9. Various of staff sorting out packages
10. Sign of Pinduoduo
11. Staff members working in office
12. Computer screen showing Pinduoduo backstage management
13. Various of Jason Yu, general manager of Greater China, Kantar Worldpanel, working with computer
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Yu, general manager, Greater China, Kantar Worldpanel (starting with shot 13/partially overlaid with shot 15):
"We do believe that as an e-commerce platform, they have to actually work with brands more closely to build a brand ecosystem. So far, we have seen quite heavy subsidies over the offer. And we don't know whether this is going to be sustainable or not. So it's very interesting to see whether they have other alternatives to attract the Chinese consumers. I hope that there will be more new activities, especially on the back of a very strong social kind of element of Pinduoduo's competitive advantage."
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
15. Various of staff members working in office
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
16. Various of cell phone showing commodity information
17. Commodities on shelf
18. Staff members working in office

Amazon is exploring the Chinese market with the Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo by setting up a pop-up store that will run until the end of December.

The move points to how the U.S. firm's China strategy is evolving after it decided earlier this year to stop operating a marketplace in the country for domestic-selling merchants.

In April, Amazon said it would instead increase its focus on selling goods from abroad to Chinese buyers and on its other businesses in the country like cloud services.

From cosmetics, grooming products, and clothing to snacks and health care supplements, you can literally find every category in nearly 1,000 overseas products brought in by Amazon.

Amazon and Pinduoduo announced their new partnership one week ahead of this year's Black Friday, hoping to break into the market with a retail splash. So far, however, there's no official report of how they're doing. There are some indications on their web sites, but it's not impressive. Australian health supplements, for instance, sell on Pinduoduo for half of the Tmall price, but Tmall's monthly sales figure is four times that of Pinduoduo.

Alex Shutter, partner at consultants Oliver Wyman, said that even though Pinduoduo-Amazon business model itself is not unique, what's intriguing about the partnership is the two players themselves.

"I think it's a great example of two players at relatively opposite ends of the market looking to create something new that they hope would be very competitive in the market. So here you have a relatively very classic case of an international player who thinks they have great products and services offering that they can bring to consumers. And on the other side, a player who has great access to hundreds of millions of consumers looking to see how they can leverage that and bring a competitive offering. I think what's interesting going forward would be how it evolves from the current pilot that's planned into the next stage. In this case, what I think interesting about the model is the potential scale it could get to," said Shutter.

It is never easy to get a foothold in the Chinese e-commerce market, and it's going to be a seesaw battle for both new partners.

According to iMedia Research, Amazon's sales have been shrinking in China. It currently has a market share of only 5.7 percent, 0.3 percentage points down from the previous quarter. At the same time, Amazon's competitor Alibaba's hold on China's cross-border e-commerce got even stronger after it acquired Kaola.com in the first half. And for Pinduoduo, attracting more big-spending consumers is likely to be its primary concern for now.

One analyst said e-commerce competition is still tough, and the new alliance had better have something more up its sleeve than just discount pricing.

"We do believe that as an e-commerce platform, they have to actually work with brands more closely to build a brand ecosystem. So far, we have seen quite heavy subsidies over the offer. And we don't know whether this is going to be sustainable or not. So it's very interesting to see whether they have other alternatives to attract the Chinese consumers. I hope that there will be more new activities, especially on the back of a very strong social kind of element of Pinduoduo's competitive advantage," said Jason Yu, general manager of the Greater China of Kantar Worldpanel.

Chinese consumers continue to buy more and more overseas goods through the Internet. Cross-border e-commerce imports reached 1.9 trillion yuan (about 269.7 billion U.S. dollars) last year, an annual rise of some 27 percent. Hoping to capitalize on this trend, Pinduoduo is targeting the introduction of 10,000 world-famous brands in the next three years. And Amazon will surely want to recover from its previous dismal showing in China.