After earning 1 million a year, the Amazon seller returned to his old business!

Since the beginning of this year, the topic of "low order volume" has been mentioned repeatedly by sellers. When will the order volume recover? Is Amazon still profitable? Some sellers have doubts.

The time to make quick money on Amazon has passed. Against the backdrop of low order volume, many sellers have begun to look for new ways to make money. Some sellers have returned to their old business after making a quick buck on Amazon, some have switched to domestic e-commerce, and some Amazon employees who are still working have started to try their hand at side businesses, such as selling desserts.

After making more than a million dollars a year, Amazon seller returns to his old business

After making some quick money, would you choose to continue digging deeper or run away?

Recently, a seller lamented that many of his friends who were engaged in cross-border e-commerce have changed their careers. Some of them have returned to their old business, some have switched to domestic e-commerce, and some have started to develop side businesses in order to protect their income. These vivid examples seem to reflect the direction of cross-border e-commerce.

“Friends who made a quick buck by selling illegal products two years ago cleared out their goods and left last year,” one seller said on a social platform.

From having nothing to earning over a million, it only took this seller one year . Later, he bought a house and a car in his hometown and saved some money. However, this seller did not rush into Amazon. He had worked in the Amazon industry for four or five years and had relatively rich work experience. But after earning a million, he chose to clear out his inventory, throw away his account and return to his old business as a programmer.

Some people feel sorry for this, thinking that with more than one million in cash, he could have slowly worked on Amazon. A hasty career change would not only waste his accumulated experience, but also might lose the opportunity to create greater profits. Perhaps because he has seen through the current situation, or perhaps because of the devastation of his account, this seller firmly stated: "It is difficult for Amazon to have such an opportunity to make a quick buck."

If you continue to bet, the car and the house may become a mirage, and "going ashore" may help you stop the loss in time.

Looking back at the cross-border e-commerce in 2020, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is full of gold. With so many orders, boxes lined up for kilometers, and houses in Shenzhen Bay, cross-border e-commerce has helped a large number of sellers to overtake others and earn a lot of money. Entering the cross-border e-commerce market has also become the choice of many people. At that time, many WeChat groups and Weibo were discussing cross-border e-commerce, and various cross-border e-commerce training institutions were opened one after another. There were countless newcomers who saw the bonus and joined the market. In 2020 alone, the number of sellers who settled in reached 1.3 million.

However, most of them entered the market blindly without any preliminary investigation and lack of experience in e-commerce operations. They entered the market with extremely low product prices, which also affected the market environment. Some factory-type sellers complained that they heard that Amazon was very popular, so they invested two million, but it has been a year and there is no splash at all. There are not a few sellers who have invested money but have not seen any return. This may be the reason why sellers quit Amazon after making one million.

Some sellers said that the early Amazon sellers have already landed. In fact, not only the early Amazon sellers, but also a group of current sellers have begun to choose other ways out, such as taking civil service exams, making guides on Xiaohongshu, B2B, domestic e-commerce, short video sales, and even switching to other platforms.

Especially since 2021, foreign exchange has continued to fall, raw materials have continued to rise in price, and sea freight prices have skyrocketed. Amazon has begun to vigorously investigate fake orders and announced various policy changes. Coupled with the low-price spiral of sellers on the platform, some sellers have been attacked from all sides, and a group of sellers who were overwhelmed have also fallen. Most of the sellers who can continue to do so are persisting at a loss.

Since 2022, logistics, product prices, and surviving sellers have all fallen. "The days of Amazon making quick money are over, and sellers need to work hard to make money," many sellers lamented.

The current situation of Amazon: some sellers leave, some sellers start side businesses

Since the beginning of this year, sellers have reported that the number of orders has continued to be sluggish; the platform has continuously raised logistics costs, storage utilization surcharges, etc. As a result, the sellers' operating costs have continued to rise, and the income they receive has been further reduced. After calculating the financial data for 2022, some sellers found that the various fees they paid to Amazon exceeded 60% or even 70% of their income, which means that nearly one-third of their income was handed over to Amazon.

But in reality, it is not easy for sellers to increase profits. Therefore, side jobs have become another channel for these sellers to expand their income. They say that having a side job is something that an adult should have. No matter what job you do, you should have your own side job, because many people earn more from their side jobs than from their salaries. Some colleagues earn more from their side jobs in a month than they earn in the company in a year , which is very enviable.

An Amazon seller in Yiwu shared his side job experience on the forum. "After looking at a lot of side job suggestions, combined with my existing resources, I decided to set up a stall to sell cakes, puffs and other desserts." At first, no one was interested in the seller's desserts, but later when the stall was about to close, the seller's desserts were sold out. The seller used the term "linking" to describe the process of selling desserts. At first, the link may not perform well, but if you wait, it may work again.

So, how much profit do the sellers make from setting up stalls at the end of the day?

Based on Amazon's thinking, the seller did some calculations: the total cost is less than 1,000, mainly including tools, ovens, etc.; the shipping cost is negligible because the seller rides a donkey and the distance is short; there is no cost for brushing orders, mainly because the seller has no money to hire someone to help them; there is basically no off-site traffic; the profit is unknown, and there is a high probability of a loss.

Although the sellers are currently losing money, this stall economy has attracted many sellers to follow suit. A seller in Yiwu said: "I plan to take advantage of the small commodity city and sell some balloons wholesale. I will sell them in crowded places at night. I will probably make a profit. If not, I will take them home for my children to play with."

In fact, for sellers, not everyone needs to have a side job. Before doing a side job, it is best to figure out: Do you have enough time and energy to do this job? Can you make money from your side job? After all, only a few people can make money. If the side job brings huge profits, can you take care of both? Sellers need to figure out these questions.

At the same time, for sellers, whether they want to do a side job or not, they still need to hold on to their main business, Amazon. Some people think that Amazon is no longer profitable and that there is a serious internal competition, but some people make a lot of money on Amazon, and there are still sellers who make millions a year. Amazon has always been profitable, and some people make money while others don't. This is normal.

In contrast, many sellers have found that working on Amazon alone is better than working as an employee, and the overall income is much higher. At present, the market situation of cross-border e-commerce is not good. No matter which platform, some people will leave and some will enter. The platform continues to raise the operating threshold. Sellers can only reap the fruits by spending more time on refined operations.

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