his spring saw the news that
Amazon is pulling back from
China. It has struggled against
the local competition – Alibaba and
JD.com – which can apparently deliver
for a fraction of the cost. Whilst we
might relish this come down from the
e-commerce behemoth, we
should still react with a mixture
of fear and awe if Amazon
appears in our space.
This happened to Spread-
shirt in the summer of 2017,
when Merch by Amazonarrived in Europe. We were a startup in
Leipzig in 2002, but today Spreadshirt
is a €100m, self-expression, e-com-
merce platform and a big player in
Europe. People use us to create
clothing and accessories with messages
they want the world to see. We then
manage the printing, delivery, local
taxes, commission payments and
fulfilment. In 2017, this equated
to nearly five million printed t-shirts,
hoodies, mugs and all sorts of
other clothing and accessories,
to over 160 countries.T
“ To compete
against Amazon
you need to
promote your
specialist
credentials”
—
Philip Rooke,
CEO, Spreadshirt64
CLOUDAUGUST 2019