(Yicai) Oct. 16 -- Chinese cross-border e-commerce merchants have expressed prudent optimistic about TikTok taking part in this year’s Black Friday despite it gives attractive subsidies for sellers to attend the promotion actives, mainly because of the strong competition from other platform.

Amazon and Walmart have fixed customer groups in the European and American markets, so it will be difficult for TikTok Shop to snatch new customers through promotions in the short term, Zhu Qiucheng, chief executive officer of a Chinese lighting sources and toys exporter Ningbo New Oriental Industry and Trade, told Yicai.

TikTok earlier announced that it will offer merchants on TikTok Shops participating in Black Friday a 50 percent subsidy. It also launched a livestreaming program to encourage sellers to conduct livestreaming events of more than one and a half hours during Black Friday.

Even with a 50 percent subsidy for merchants, TikTok Shop’s prices are still at a disadvantage compared with those on Pinduoduo’s cross-border e-commerce platform Temu, Zhu noted.

Another factor to take into consideration is the market environment, as affected by inflation, consumers are more likely to buy only necessities, Zhu added.

Many have been adopting a wait-and-see attitude since the end of the pandemic, so we expect lower sales for this year’s Black Friday, the head of Chinese computer accessories maker Ajazz Tongchuang Electronic Technology told Yicai. The company’s profit margin for this year’s Black Friday will likely be 5 percent to 10 percent lower than last year’s, the person added.

Despite the pessimism, Ajazz raised its investment in social media and TikTok to enhance brand recognition. Last year, the brand spent more than CNY2 million (USD273,800) overseas, and this year, it has further increased its budget.

AliExpress, the cross-border e-commerce business of Alibaba Group Holdings, will also participate in this year’s Black Friday. With a statement on Sept. 26, it required merchants to reduce the price of goods by 5 percent from the lowest in the previous 90 days. The price of goods that will not be adjusted will have an automatic discount of USD3 for every USD15.

Editor: Futura Costaglione