A large number of sellers saw a decline in sales before PD!

The “darkness” before Member’s Day .

Since 2023, a large number of sellers have reported that their sales have plummeted year-on-year, especially since June, when sales have become worse day by day. This also means that they do not have to deal with related matters. However, Amazon sellers have reported that they have been too busy to stop recently.

Because of the concentration of bad things on the eve of Membership Day, sellers not only have to deal with the Consumer Notification Act, but also have to deal with various unexpected events. As early as the first half of June, some people's shopping carts disappeared inexplicably, and this situation is still happening. In addition, many sellers said that their accounts were closed due to abuse of Amazon services.

The countdown to Prime Day 2023 has begun! Sellers who have confirmed that they will participate have been preparing for a long time. One unexpected event after another has tested the sellers' mentality, and a group of sellers may miss the opportunity to participate in Prime Day...

Silence before Prime Day: Sales of a large number of sellers plummeted!

Since the beginning of this year, a large number of Amazon sellers have expressed dismal sales. Originally, they thought that this situation would gradually improve over time. However, what is unexpected is that the number of orders is almost lower every month, which is especially obvious after the Dragon Boat Festival. There are more complaints about this:

Last year wasn’t so bad , with sales in June dropping 30% compared to May .

Recently, orders have dropped by 40 % , and looking at the advertising expenses , blood pressure will rise immediately .

After the Dragon Boat Festival, the number of orders dropped by half, and the advertising conversion rate was only a few percent. I thought I was the only one experiencing this.

Less than half a year after joining the company, the number of orders did not increase at all, but was halved . I felt like I was going to be fired by my boss ...

The prices are dropping every day. I’m questioning my life and feel like I’m going to lose my job!

Mood dropped faster than order volume, advertising expenses increased, but sales and profit margins were half of what they were in May.

Sales volume is getting lower day by day. There is no lowest, only lower.

I felt relieved when I saw that everyone was suffering. I thought we were the only ones suffering.

I have signed up for Prime Day, but I wonder if this promotion will fail...

It can be found that sellers generally reported that sales in June were very poor. One veteran Amazon seller who has been doing FBM for more than ten years sometimes did not receive a single order. This situation was unexpected, so he wanted to quit Amazon after another year.

Coincidentally, another Amazon seller also said that the products would sell very well at this time of year in previous years, but this year the expected hot season did not come, sales volume fell sharply year-on-year, and profits fell to less than 20%.

While sales and profits have dropped sharply, sellers have also found that their peers have recently begun to slash prices, and product prices are ridiculously low. "I calculated that some products are already on the verge of losing money. If the prices are lowered further, there will be no profit." Xiao Zhang (pseudonym) said that this year's cross-border e-commerce market situation is really confusing.

What is worse than Xiao Zhang's situation is that many sellers have started to lose money, and some even lost money in May and June. In this case, everyone generally believes that any loss is a profit . Not only are they more cost-conscious in the business process, they have also long suspended the development of new products and other matters, with survival as the first goal.

The sharp drop in order volume has put pressure on not only the boss but also the employees. "The order volume has been cut in half, and the boss has three soul-searching questions every day: How are the orders today? Why are they lower than yesterday? What caused this?" After suffering from a series of declines in order volume, an Amazon operator began to doubt his life. "When I have free time, I start to wonder whether it is the market or me who is not good enough . It is true that many of my peers have the same miserable sales as me, but many others have also seen an increase in order volume. I don't think I am suitable for working at Amazon ..."

Many operators have a sense of crisis as they are self-doubting, always worrying that the company will not be able to bear the financial pressure and will start to lay off employees. They are especially worried when reporting sales, fearing that the boss will fire them in the next second. With the decline in orders, topics related to resignation and career change have become popular again, and many people have begun to leave.

What is the reason for the disappointing order volume this year, especially since June? Industry insiders have given the following speculations:

1. "Darkness" before Prime Day. Amazon Prime Day 2023 will be held worldwide from July 11 to 12. The event will cover 25 countries, which is larger than last year, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. The event in India will be held later this summer.

According to the psychology of many consumers, they usually stop shopping temporarily before the big sale, and then buy a lot when the big sale comes. It happens that we are in the "silent period" before the peak season every year. Industry insiders speculate that the current situation is not the worst. From July 1st to the eve of Member Day, the number of product orders may be even bleaker.

2. Temu has taken away orders from Amazon sellers. Everyone should have felt how powerful Temu is. Since the sales volume started to decline at the beginning of the year, there have been endless voices saying that "Temu has taken away traffic from Amazon sellers", and now is no exception. It is undeniable that the cheaper price of Temu products is an important reason. It is understood that the same product, which was originally priced at 25 to 30 US dollars or even higher on the Amazon platform, can be bought at less than 10 US dollars on the Temu platform. The huge price difference is enough to make many consumers temporarily ignore the issue of whether the quality is the same, and thus impulsively place orders.

An Amazon seller said that the order volume of their company's Amazon department has dropped significantly this year, but the order volume of the Temu department has increased sharply, and the sales of several products have exceeded that of the Amazon department. Temu is too "aggressive", and sellers have begun to worry about this Amazon Prime Day .

3. During the traditional off-season, offline supermarkets and other businesses have impacted online shopping. As the impact of the epidemic gradually disappears, offline supermarkets begin to resume normal operations, and cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon will lose some consumers; the booming development of independent websites, the gradual maturity of private domains, and the rise of other e-commerce platforms have also diverted Amazon's orders to a certain extent; the rise of models such as full hosting has attracted a large number of novice sellers to enter the market, and the increase in sellers will also "eat away" some traffic.

The inexplicable disappearance of the shopping cart also affected the order volume! A large number of sellers were affected

At the same time, some sellers believe that the recent "inexplicable disappearance of shopping carts" incident has also caused trouble for the number of orders. " The link has no shopping cart, the ad has no exposure and data, sales have dropped sharply , and sometimes there is no order. " Recently, many European sellers reported that the products that were sold normally suddenly disappeared from the shopping cart:

At first, only a few links had no shopping carts, but now over a hundred links have no shopping carts.

The account status was normal, but suddenly there was no shopping cart in the links between the front and back ends.

Almost all the FBA links of the entire store have lost the shopping cart, but the performance, order volume and ratings are all normal.

All shopping carts in Europe are gone, and customer service said it does not meet the recommended offer.

The new store and new link have orders but no shopping cart, and there is no exposure when advertising.

All shopping carts at the three sites in Germany, France and Italy were lost, and all the responses when opening cases were templates.

I heard that some people’s shopping carts were restored, but my European link has not yet restored the shopping cart, I’m so anxious.

Will there be a situation where the shopping cart is lost in the North American site? Membership day is coming soon, and I am trembling.

…

Judging from the feedback from sellers, the disappearance of the shopping cart this time affected a wide range of people. Not only new links were affected, but old links were also affected. Hot-selling links and not-so-hot-selling links also faced the situation of losing both their shopping carts.

At present, it seems that many people have opened many cases to contact customer service, but it is useless. It is understood that there are inconsistencies in the customer service replies. One customer service replied that the seller's product did not identify whether it was delivered by FBA, and it was necessary to refresh it with a template and select Amazon delivery in the delivery method; one customer service said that the product did not meet the recommended quotation range; one customer service said that there was indeed a problem with the shopping cart, and they had already reported the problem. Amazon is currently processing it, and it should be a problem with the backend system review.

In summary, customer service mainly wants sellers to continue waiting, but the results of the waiting vary from person to person. Some people return to normal while others continue to wait.

The situations of sellers whose shopping carts were restored were different. Many people did not do anything and the link automatically restored the shopping cart; some people asked the investment manager for help, and the problem was finally solved after the investment manager sent an email feedback; many people succeeded in self-help. They mainly recovered the shopping cart by modifying the price floor to a lower price than the lowest price in the recent orders. People familiar with the matter said that Amazon started the price sweeping behavior as early as one or two months ago. As long as it found a lower price outside the site, the shopping cart of Amazon would be lost. Until the seller adjusted the price to the lowest in the entire network, the shopping cart will be restored immediately.

In fact, the price modification method is not effective for every seller. Many sellers have tried to adjust the upper and lower limits of the price, but still failed to get the shopping cart back . In this regard, some people speculate that if the shopping cart is suddenly gone from an old link, it is likely a system bug, and the seller can only wait for the system to return to normal. If this happens with a new link, the only way is to reduce the price.

It is understood that some sellers' shopping carts have been missing for more than half a month, and some sellers' shopping carts are still disappearing ... They have ruled out the common reasons for the disappearance of shopping carts one by one, but none of them worked. What are the reasons for the disappearance of sellers' shopping carts? The following are the answers given by industry insiders for reference:

1. Reports or complaints from Amazon buyers lead to high return and exchange rates and an increase in negative reviews. At this time, the seller will become the focus of Amazon's investigation, and there will be a temporary restriction on the shopping cart; many negative reviews lead to poor listing performance, affecting the listing's rating, and also causing the shopping cart to be lost;

2. Randomly changing the listing information affects the ranking and weight of the listing, such as merging listings or splitting variants, changing listing categories, etc.; frequently optimizing listings causes the Amazon system to consider the product abnormal, thereby losing the shopping cart.

3. Poor store performance;

4. The price adjustment is unreasonable and the adjustment range is too large, resulting in the loss of shopping cart;

5. Amazon matches the same product with a lower price in other online stores. Amazon does not allow sellers to sell products at a lower price in other channels;

6. FBA is out of stock, inventory is locked, or inventory is investigated by Amazon, resulting in the loss of the shopping cart.

The problem of lost shopping carts is not uncommon, but such a large number of shopping carts lost this time is not common. The problem has not been resolved for a long time, and sellers will always worry about it, especially with Amazon Prime Day approaching. They can't help but worry about whether this will affect product sales during the membership day.

There are many troubles before Prime Day. Sellers: We will not support Amazon’s charity gala!

As usual, some bad things happen on the eve of Amazon Prime Day every year. In addition to the disappearance of shopping carts, some old problems such as account suspension and slow product delivery have started to occur again.

Regarding account closures, in the past two days another group of sellers said that they could not log into their accounts for unknown reasons, and that their accounts were closed due to abuse of Amazon services. However, they did not receive any emails, and the store products were being sold normally at the front desk.

According to customer service, the reason for this wave of account closures is that the buyer's account of the same account was blocked . The solutions currently used by the seller are mainly the following 4 points:

1. Ask Chinese customer service for help, and they will help me submit the problem to the US team. From the feedback, it seems that there is little effect.

2. Ask American customer service for help. The entire process requires communication in English and the effect will be better than Chinese customer service.

3. Open a case through the Help button in the lower right corner of the seller account login interface to explain the situation. Some people say that the account will be restored to normal after a few days.

4. Seek help from a service provider or a paid investment manager. The success rate is higher, but it costs money.

A person familiar with the matter said that Amazon is scanning accounts recently. If the seller's buyer account has confirmed that there has been no operation, it is likely that it was accidentally damaged by Amazon. The seller can keep calling the foreign customer service hotline to apply for restoration .

In terms of product receiving and putting on shelves, there have been waves of news about Amazon warehouse explosions recently, and the problem is getting worse. It can be observed that Amazon sellers' goods have not been received or put on shelves for half a month at the least and three months at the most. "The goods were delivered in early June . After Amazon signed for part of them , there was no movement. The speed is very touching. " The slow putting on shelves has a lot to do with the warehouse. Some warehouses put on shelves quickly, while some popular warehouses put on shelves slowly. It seems that luck also accounts for part of the reason. In the same warehouse, some sellers can put their goods on shelves quickly, while some sellers need to wait.

" Prime Day is coming soon. Can Amazon accept my goods? If the trend continues like this, I'm worried that the goods will not be put on the shelves after Prime Day. " A seller said pessimistically that the goods have arrived in the United States, but have not been picked up yet. Both receiving the goods and putting them on the shelves will take a lot of time. If nothing unexpected happens, the goods will be out of stock on Prime Day. After all, the excitement will belong to others and he will have no chance to enjoy it.

Whether the account is blocked or out of stock, it means that these sellers may passively miss Prime Day , while a group of sellers actively stay away from this big promotion.

Prime Day is seen as a symbol of explosive sales. However, not all sellers participating in the promotion can achieve explosive sales. There are also many sellers whose sales plummet during the promotion, and some even "cannot sell at a loss". Of course, even if some sellers increase their sales due to the promotion, they are not optimistic about this event.

" I participated in this event last year , and my sales did increase , but I spent more on advertising . After calculating, I found that the event did not bring me any bonus, and I even lost a lot of money. This year, I will not increase my budget to sign up for this event. " This view is recognized by many sellers. They believe that the number of orders during the Member Day is indeed relatively high, but the profit is also the lowest in the whole year. If you don't plan to clear your stock, there is little point in participating.

Everything has two sides, and there are many sellers who hold opposite opinions. For many sellers, the importance of Prime Day is self-evident. As a great opportunity to increase sales, they participate in this promotion with different purposes.

1. Sell at a loss to boost sales and pave the way for the second half of the year. The annual loss-making sale is approaching, and sellers are well aware of this, but they are not thinking about profits , but about boosting sales to gain a foothold , so that they can make more money after the membership day.

2. Look forward to Prime Day and expect a good profit. During the promotion period, many products are indeed sold at prices that are almost "bottom line", and these products are obviously not profitable. However, some products can gain both sales and profits. It is reported that some sellers' goal this year is to achieve sales of 1 million US dollars and make considerable profits.

The majority of cross-border e-commerce groups are small and medium-sized sellers. Some small sellers do not have much capital to participate in flash sales and other activities, and only plan to offer member-exclusive discounts, and then adjust advertising budgets and price cuts according to the situation. Some small sellers invest relatively more in member days and have higher goals. They not only hope to maintain profits, but also hope that old products can rush to the forefront of small categories and new products can "stand out". In short, the rankings of old and new products must move forward.

3. Not seeking to make money, just hoping to clear the remaining inventory. The focus of this activity for many sellers is just to clear the long-term unsalable inventory, or to say, the inventory prepared by PD last year, will continue to be digested this year!

" Prepare goods in advance , prepare sufficient funds , and use full advertising , Chinese sellers are going to support Amazon's charity gala again. " Amazon sellers often like to joke that they are philanthropists. Prime Day is an annual philanthropist feast, and everyone is sending warmth to foreign friends. Sellers are enthusiastic, and Amazon Prime Day sales have also been rising in recent years: Global sales during the event in 2019 reached US$7.16 billion ; In the two days from October 13 to 14, 2020, Amazon's global sales on Prime Day reached US$10.4 billion ; In 2021, global sales hit a new high of US$11 billion ; Prime Day in 2022 will reach US$10.4 billion.   Day's global sales broke the record, reaching $11.9 billion !

"New cross-border e-commerce platforms emerge one after another. Compared with other platforms, only Amazon is the most stable." In 2023, a year when everyone is complaining about the difficulties, a large number of sellers still have higher expectations for Amazon Prime Day.

Amazon Platform