The resignation wave continues! A large number of operations personnel want to change positions

It's job hunting season again!

The cross-border circle in 2023 is slowly moving forward amid crazy complaints like "the volume of orders in the off-season has continued to fall as expected". The majority of cross-border workers are also eager to "change the status quo and start anew" in the new year.

Should I continue to stay in this company in 2023, or go out and look for other companies? What type of company is more suitable for me? What is the current market situation? How much base salary can I get with 3 years of experience in Shenzhen? How is the commission system of other companies calculated? Should I switch from development to operation? Should I switch from Shopee platform operation to Temu platform operation? Where would be more suitable after leaving Shenzhen...

These timeless thoughts are often given different interpretations due to different factors such as time and environment. In 2023, let us see how cross-border people view the current cross-border industry and workplace situation.

Job seeking for 3 years of boutique operation experience, minimum base salary is 6,000! Will cross-border bosses stop hiring in 2023?

According to the usual practice, January to April every year is the peak period for job hunting and recruitment. Employees yearn for the outside world, and companies will also regularly recruit people to replenish fresh blood for the company! However, this year, when the majority of cross-border workers "follow this established process", they regretfully discovered that the current market salary trend continues to maintain a downward trend, and the rule of "salary increase by job hopping" begins to apply to more people. It is already a luxury to get the same salary in the next company, and even by comparison, the salary will be reduced by about 30%. I can't help but feel that the current operating status is no longer better than during the 2020 epidemic.

I believe many of my friends have felt this deeply. When looking for a job on recruitment software such as Zhaopin.com and BOSS Direct, the recruitment salary ranges from 5,000 to 10,000 yuan, but the actual salary may be only 5,000 yuan. This year, many workers have complained about this phenomenon.

"The overall environment is not very good. Almost everyone inflates the salary. The lower limit is really the upper limit. I have three years of experience in boutique jobs and I'm based in Shenzhen. I 've been interviewing and looking for a job recently . I want a basic salary of 8,000 during the internship period and around 9,000 after becoming a regular employee. However, many companies I interviewed said during the conversation that they couldn't offer such a high basic salary . I'm about to doubt my life now. Are my requirements really that high? Is the market situation so bad now? " Recently, an Amazon operator said that he really didn't expect job hunting this year to be so difficult. The treatment in many companies is not as good as that of his previous company. If he had known this, he would not have resigned.

Another experienced Amazon operator also said that it is harder to find a job this year than last year. For many companies, work experience and years of service are no longer a plus for basic salary. The reason given is "earning according to ability, low salary and high commission". It is understood that this operator took leave and interviewed several companies. In terms of salary, only one company could meet the basic salary requirement of 9,000 yuan, and another company even said that the basic salary could only be 6,000 yuan. He is now beginning to waver in his desire to leave.

The editor has observed that there are quite a few workers with similar experiences. Many of them are located in Shenzhen. The current basic salary is around 8,000. Due to various reasons, it has been difficult to get commissions. Therefore, the primary consideration when changing jobs is still the basic salary. After all, the basic salary is something that can be held in your hands. After hitting a wall in job hunting in Shenzhen, they had the idea of ​​leaving Shenzhen. Some people successfully left, while others were discouraged by reality after a round of discussions.

"I was doubting my life during a job interview in Shenzhen recently, so I had the idea of ​​returning to my hometown Changsha to develop. However, after searching on BOSS Zhipin, I found that the basic salary in my hometown did not meet my expectations, so I immediately gave up the idea."

What is the salary situation for Amazon operations outside of Shenzhen?

According to feedback from a friend who lives in Anhui, he entered the cross-border e-commerce industry in 2020 and switched to Amazon operations in early 2022. His initial base salary was 4,500 yuan, and after the job change, his base salary became 5,500 yuan, but he rarely got commissions, and the highest monthly salary was only 6,000 yuan.

Another friend who lives in Guangzhou reported that he has been working for Amazon for several years, but his base salary + commission has not reached 10,000 yuan. Every time he sees someone saying that they earn 200,000 yuan a year, he doubts whether everyone is working for the same Amazon.

Another friend who lives in Hangzhou reported that his current base salary is 5,000 . Since his company is a pioneering company, the work is rather miscellaneous and he needs to do photo editing , video , copywriting , etc. by himself. He has not received any commission after working for a whole year, but fortunately he has two days off on weekends.

According to the feedback from the above cross-border e-commerce operations, the basic monthly salary in second- and third-tier cities is around 6,000. If it is in a first-tier city, the monthly salary can reach around 8,000.

However, there are also many people whose monthly comprehensive salary easily exceeds 10,000 yuan, and some people can even earn 20,000 or 30,000 yuan per month, or even higher. Each situation has its own reason. Different companies, different products, different years of work and other factors have caused the "uneven operating salary levels."

In summary, most operations workers earn less than 10,000 yuan per month. However, it cannot be ignored that the overall salary level of operations workers this year is not as good as in the previous two years. This is closely related to the overall environment. During the epidemic, a large number of "dream chasers" swarmed into Amazon. In the uphill stage of the industry, the value of operations workers, whether good or bad, has almost risen. After cross-border e-commerce was driven out of the bonus period of the epidemic, problems began to slowly emerge. Batches of old sellers were washed out, and there were not many new sellers in the past two years. The supply and demand sides have changed again, making the high salaries of operations workers no longer exist.

At the same time, for old players, many cross-border e-commerce bosses do not have much confidence in the future situation and have no plans to expand and recruit people, which further increases the psychological gap between operations and job hunting.

"Recently, I've heard that some companies are gearing up to recruit people to work hard this year, but my colleagues around me have no need to recruit people, so I guess there are definitely sellers who want to expand this year, but the number is not as many as before," said a cross-border e-commerce seller. As far as he knows, for the Amazon team, the majority of sellers want to maintain the status quo this year, and only a few companies are recruiting a small number of people. In addition, there are quite a few sellers who are laying off employees or stopping doing business with Amazon.

It can be seen that as the cross-border e-commerce industry gradually returns to normal levels, the recruitment of cross-border e-commerce companies will also change accordingly with the overall environment. A cross-border e-commerce company boss said with emotion, " Shenzhen Amazon's recruitment has finally returned to normal , and the salary level of employees has also returned to normal. Recruitment is not as tight as before . Before, the salary for recruiting an operator with a little work experience was 10,000 yuan plus commission. Now, a base salary of around 7,000 yuan can recruit a suitable operator . "

In addition to salary issues, workers in cross-border e-commerce operations will also encounter other unexpected things during the job search process.

"Some companies made me feel really good when I chatted with them on BOSS Direct. For example, some said they were boutique operators and had their own supply chain. But after I actually went to the company for the interview, I found out that they were a pioneering company and were responsible for operating and selecting products, with a maximum budget of US$60 for launching new products..." A worker said that during his recent job search, there were quite a few companies with which he had a very pleasant interview and talked for a long time. Only in the end did the company say that the operators they recruited needed to take over the old links to increase sales, and that blindly launching new products did not meet the company's development needs.

There are also many cases of "doing all kinds of questions during the interview, but no response after submitting the answer sheet". It is understood that many operations personnel have to write for an hour after arriving at the company, and after finishing writing, they are told "sorry, you are not suitable for this position" for various reasons. There are also operations personnel who are chased for product links of their previous companies after the interview. After refusing, the other party actually replied that "you have reservations about the company before joining the company, which does not meet the company's requirements for employees, so you did not pass the interview."

Regarding the phenomenon that many companies frequently interview but do not recruit, some industry insiders say that this is because HR has KPI indicators, such as how many people to invite and how many resumes to review each month, so many job seekers are just tools for others to complete their performance. Of course, there are also some companies that simply recruit people under the guise of gaining experience, or hope to deepen their understanding of the industry through interviews and communication with operations.

How is the commission system calculated? A company requires that employees who fail to meet performance targets must compensate the company

Why do you want to change jobs? The editor has observed that many workers want to change companies to improve their abilities and earn more money.

"I have been in this company for several years, and now I can only get a basic salary every month. I can't see any future development at all." An operations officer who wants to resign admitted that the operations levels of his colleagues in the company are actually very similar. He clearly feels that he cannot learn much in the current company, and with the company's existing resources, his monthly income will not fluctuate much. He has a lot of time to slack off every day, and the more he slacks off, the more anxious he becomes. He just wants to jump out of his current comfort zone.

Workers who leave for money will definitely consider the basic salary and commission system assessment as important criteria for judging when looking for a job. It is understood that there are currently three main methods for calculating Amazon's operating performance, based on the different business models of cross-border e-commerce companies, namely, the profit calculation method, the sales calculation method, and the payment calculation method.

A worker in Guangzhou who has five years of Amazon operation experience said that his current base salary is 8,000 yuan, and the commission calculation = (monthly payment - month's FBA fees - month's purchasing fees - month's logistics fees - other expenses) * 3% commission point, and there is a 5% net profit dividend every six months.

Another worker said that the commission is 6% of net profit, net profit = product gross profit - management salary amortization - warehouse and non-operation staff salary amortization - all other expenses - last month's salary. Many workers are familiar with this commission method, "Our company's operation commission is also 6% of net profit. When calculating net profit, we need to amortize non-operation wages, including the salaries of leaders."

After understanding, the editor found that in terms of commission, many companies not only set up positive incentive mechanisms, but also set up negative incentive mechanisms. For example, a cross-border e-commerce company said that in order to ensure that the operation direction of employees is consistent with the company's goals , the incentive mechanism is specially formulated as follows :

1. The commission is calculated based on 3% of the amount of payment (the amount of payment that Amazon transfers to the company's designated account) . If there is a monthly profit loss , the commission ratio will be halved (if the commission is 3, it will be calculated based on 1.5, and if the loss exceeds 50,000 RMB, the commission for that month will be cancelled) .

2. For companies with an annual profit margin of more than 10%, different levels of year-end rewards will be given for achieving sales volume . For sales volume of US$800,000 , RMB 20,000 will be given, for sales volume of US$1.1 million, RMB 35,000 will be given, for sales volume of US$2 million , RMB 50,000 will be given, for sales volume of US $3 million , RMB 70,000 will be given, and for sales volume of more than US$4.5 million , RMB 100,000 will be given .

For those who fail to achieve the sales target or whose profits are lower than 8% , a negative incentive of 5,000 US dollars will be given if the sales volume is less than US$800,000 , 10,000 US dollars if the sales volume is less than US $ 1.1 million , 20,000 US dollars if the sales volume is less than US$2 million , 30,000 US dollars if the sales volume is less than US$3 million , and 40,000 US dollars if the sales volume is less than US$4.5 million .

3. Those who fail to achieve the target for three consecutive months will need to be transferred to other positions or make other adjustments, and will be held accountable for major operational errors .

4. Work actively and diligently , have no serious violations of regulations and disciplines, and have no major operational errors . The final right of interpretation belongs to the company .

Many employees expressed their understanding of this, but some also felt that many rules were not detailed enough and that they might still have to pay money to the company after working hard for a year.

In fact, salary is the focus of discussion among cross-border people at any time. Regarding the issue of base salary and commission, some operators said they are more willing to accept the model of low base salary and high commission, saying that this model is more suitable and can stimulate their potential and maintain work passion. It is understood that some companies offer a commission of 20% of net profit in order to stimulate the operational capabilities of employees.

Of course, there are also many operators who think that the high base salary and low commission model is more in line with their job search standards. In their opinion, commissions are not easy to get, and many companies begin to change the commission standards as soon as they see that their employees have built up their stores. In this way, the actual money that employees receive will never be much, so the high base salary model is safer.

Do you want to switch to Amazon operations if you are operating Temu, Shopee, or AliExpress?

Putting aside the issue of money that everyone is most concerned about, in the current cross-border e-commerce workplace, there are often conflicts or mutual envy between different positions and different platforms, which has given rise to countless love, hate and emotions.

In a cross-border e-commerce company, people in different positions get along well with each other but also have sparks flying. Someone once summarized it this way:

My boss’s view of me: Without me, the company would have closed down long ago. My boss’s view of operations: Without my excellent platform, can you achieve results? My boss’s view of development: I only lose money on samples every month.

Myself in the eyes of operations: Without me, the company would have gone bankrupt long ago; Artist in the eyes of operations: The pictures have no sense of design and the poor click-through rate is all your fault; Developer in the eyes of operations: I spend all my 8 hours at work looking at 1688.

Myself in the eyes of developers: Without me, the company would have gone bankrupt long ago; My boss in the eyes of developers: He wants to buy other people’s factories with a cost of 10 yuan; My operations in the eyes of developers: I have worked hard to develop so many hot-selling products, but none of them were promoted.

…

In the course of work, conflicts between employees are inevitable. If problems can be solved well between different positions, then everything will be fine. Otherwise, it will be the fuse for many people to resign.

Let's talk about the cross-border e-commerce contempt chain. Once upon a time, the cross-border contempt chain was: Amazon >eBay>AliExpress>Lazada>joom>Shopee>street stalls>vova>picking up waste>Wish; as time goes by, the cross-border contempt chain is: independent website>Amazon>AliExpress>Shopee>other platforms. Looking at the Amazon platform alone, which has a huge group of sellers, the contempt chain is: boutique>fine shop>spread goods>random spread goods>follow sales.

There are certain practitioners on each chain of contempt. When choosing a job, they often have the dilemma of whether to work on this platform or that platform.

An Amazon operator wants to transfer to Temu. According to him, he has been working in Shenzhen for more than two years, with a monthly salary of about 8,000. As for the future, since many Amazon companies have laid off employees, he is now worried about experiencing the 35-year-old crisis in advance, so he has been considering whether to change his operation direction. After learning from many sources, he is very interested in the popular Temu. Many companies have expressed their interest in recruiting Temu operations supervisors with a monthly salary of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. They are willing to transfer to other platforms such as Amazon and Walmart, and provide job training. He is very tempted, but he is worried that after transferring to Temu, he will not be as stable as Amazon, and there will be fewer opportunities for choice in the future.

A Wish operator with more than 5 years of experience in boutique shopping wants to switch to Amazon boutique operation. In his opinion, the Wish platform is still going downhill, and the company he is working for has no development prospects. If he continues to maintain the status quo, there will be no room for appreciation in salary or ability in the future. So he is considering switching to Amazon boutique. After all, Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce platform. More importantly, there are many companies doing Amazon business, so there will be more choices in the future. However, during the interview process, many cross-border companies do not want people without Amazon boutique experience . He is now in a dilemma of "giving up or starting over".

An AliExpress operator is also considering switching platforms. Although the AliExpress platform has many advantages, such as being easier to use and less risky than many other platforms, the product traffic of his company has dropped significantly due to the impact of EU VAT and the Russia-Ukraine war. The base salary is already low, and he doesn't get much commission, which is even worse now. Under the instigation of the current wave of resignations, the idea of ​​switching platforms is always lingering.

In addition, many operators of multiple platforms such as Shopee, independent sites, and TikTok also want to try other platforms.

Many operators regretted switching platforms and returned to their original platforms, while many others found the platform that suits them best during the trial and error process.

"I have worked in several cross-border e-commerce companies and currently work as an Amazon operator at a factory-type company in Shenzhen . The companies I have worked for before were involved in many platforms, such as Walmart , AliExpress , Wish, Lazada, Shopee, etc. Personally, I feel that Amazon > Shopee >Walmart>other platforms . " In line with the opinion of this Amazon operator, many workers believe that among so many cross-border e-commerce platforms, it is more attractive to be a brick-moving worker at Amazon.

Regarding the Temu platform, which is still in the development stage , operators obviously have different opinions. Some are optimistic about the future development prospects of this platform, while others think that there are too many uncontrollable factors on this platform. It is just that its development momentum is strong now, and it may follow in the footsteps of Wish in the future, so it is not recommended to get involved.

In the process of engaging in the cross-border e-commerce industry, I believe everyone will encounter many other problems or troubles. There are no standard answers to many problems. Everyone needs to take a path that suits them best based on their actual situation. Therefore, in the current job search season, I hope everyone can clear the fog and welcome the sunrise as soon as possible.