Freight forwarders have problems, trademarks are exposed, and platforms are closed! Sellers: It’s so hard to live...

The ups and downs of 2022 are finally over, and the hopeful year of 2023 has arrived.

In 2022, the turbulent global economic situation has had a huge impact on the cross-border e-commerce industry.

The long-awaited dream of the peak season was shattered. Sellers had planned to survive , but reality often makes things worse .

This year, the cross-border e-commerce industry has been hit by a series of scandals, causing a large number of sellers to suffer, losing both money and goods, and even worse, facing the dilemma of trademark scandals and platform closures ...

Freight forwarders frequently "explode", and sellers have to pay for millions of losses!

In 2022, the freight forwarding industry has frequently seen financial crises, with more and more incidents of freight forwarders running away, broken capital chains, and soliciting cargo at low prices.

In June 2022, Shenzhen Quanyi Cross-border Supply Chain Co., Ltd. was unable to solve the problem on its own due to a broken capital chain, and asked its customers to raise 4 million to withdraw the goods stranded at the port.

The person in charge of Quanyi said that there was no problem with the line, but with their own funds, and they hoped to get the goods out through crowdfunding.

This incident involves more than 100 small freight forwarders, and there are many related cross-border sellers downstream. Most companies are unwilling to pay this unfair money.

In October 2022, another freight forwarding company in Shenzhen went bankrupt. It is understood that the company was doing the first leg of US FBA in Pinghu, Shenzhen, and received a lot of goods from its peers, among which the largest cargo of its peers was 200 cubic meters. However, due to problems with the company's capital turnover, 8 containers incurred high demurrage fees at US ports.

Although two containers with less costs were paid by the second-generation company and placed in the company's overseas warehouse, the second-generation company required the cargo owner to share the demurrage and pay the freight again before arranging the US overseas warehouse to release the goods for delivery. This means that if the seller wants to get the goods, in addition to paying the demurrage, he has to pay the freight again.

In December 2022, goods from 18 logistics companies encountered problems, involving more than 200 sellers and fines of more than 10 million yuan.

Since the end of October, a series of problems occurred in the EQ2 warehouse in Belgium, such as suspension of goods entering and exiting and closure of the warehouse. The customs finally determined the fine amount in this case to be 1,394,487.12 euros (about 10.28 million yuan), involving more than 200 customers, 43,085 boxes of goods, and a total VAT of 784,728.61 euros, causing huge losses to both customers and logistics companies.

After meeting and discussing with Belgian customs clearance representatives, 18 logistics companies decided to quickly clear out the goods in the warehouse by paying fines to protect their customers' products.

In response to this, the customs has consolidated all the goods and will not release the warehouse until the full fine is paid. In response, all logistics parties said that customers need to bear at least half of the fine before they can pick up the goods.

In this incident, 18 logistics companies asked customers to bear half of the costs. This solution is not much different from the previous ones, and sellers still need to bear huge losses.

Multiple trademark agency companies have encountered problems. How can sellers avoid risks?

In 2022, American standard default incidents occurred frequently, many well-known trademark agency companies encountered problems, and many sellers were badly cheated.

In August 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a "Statement of Cause Order" to a Shenzhen company, directly pointing out that the company had violated laws and regulations, and provided evidence of suspected fraud. The US standard of 2,200+ may be abolished.

The firm registered, controlled, or operated multiple USPTO.gov accounts and used those accounts to submit false documents that included the electronic signatures of attorneys Jeffrey Firestone and Jackson George.

It is reported that the company used the signatures of the deceased lawyer Jeffrey Firestone and a "fictitious lawyer".

In September 2022, many sellers reported that another Shenzhen trademark agency company had "collapsed", and 13,000+ American standards were about to be invalidated!

The U.S. Trademark Office pointed out that this agency was suspected of fraudulent and illegal operations. The list of trademarks involved was as long as 115 pages. Moreover, the time span of these trademarks was astonishing, ranging from 2010 to 2020. Many sellers reported that they were unfortunately hit.

In December 2022, another trademark agency company "collapsed", and more than 6,000 trademarks represented by the company will be sanctioned.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO) pointed out that the company violated the USPTO's trademark operating regulations. The company responded to the trademark "thunderstorm incident" that was reported this time, pointing out that the company had previously submitted a batch of "international brand trademarks" and was warned. The company did not switch the email address when applying for the subsequent application, which caused an association, but it did not affect the certified trademark.

If a trademark fails, the seller still has the opportunity to file a complaint or defense with the Trademark Office through a licensed US attorney.

The seller's registered trademark is still valid. Even if the trademark registration is finally ruled invalid by the USPTO, the seller's trademark is still protected by US law and cannot be easily infringed by others. The USPTO will also give the trademark owner some time to contact a suitable US lawyer. The seller can provide evidence of trademark use and request a reexamination by the USPTO.

However, the key is that sellers must keep their eyes open when applying for trademarks, choose compliant and formal agencies, and never take risks for the sake of temporary bargains.

Unable to withstand the "cold winter"! Well-known cross-border e-commerce platform closed down

This year's cross-border e-commerce market can be described as cold and gloomy, with many well-known cross-border e-commerce platforms facing bankruptcy and closure.

In November 2022, during the peak promotion month, Tophatter, an e-commerce platform that has been deeply rooted in the North American market for a decade, is suspected to have gone bankrupt.

Tophatter's website has been down since November .

Tophatter officially stated that the platform's search bar will be shut down indefinitely starting from October 11, 2022.

In June 2022, Tophatter announced that it would officially close to Chinese sellers, and all services for sellers who had already settled in would be terminated.

Some sellers speculated that Tophatter's withdrawal was due to the unfavorable economic situation in the United States and the high cost of online customer acquisition.

In December 2022, Sihai Shangzhou, a cross-border e-commerce company that had been in operation for more than 10 years, announced bankruptcy and liquidation.

A leaked "letter to employees" shows that the company is now unable to continue operating due to long-term operational difficulties. The company has decided to end its operations on December 15, 2022, terminate labor contracts, and enter liquidation procedures.

Sihai Shangzhou was established in 2011 with a registered capital of 11.5829 million yuan. The company's main business includes joint operations and management consulting, providing operations, marketing, logistics, intellectual property and other services, covering multiple platform channels such as Amazon, eBay, Wish, and Walmart.

During its golden period, Sihai Shangzhou received two rounds of financing, including a Round A financing of US$40 million from IDG, and a Round B financing in 2017.

Many sellers were saddened by the closure of Sihai Ark.

From the internal reasons of the bankrupt companies, it can be seen that they basically have certain defects in their own business models, which make it difficult to retain customers for a long time. After the market dividend recedes, they fail to maintain the original market. In addition, the external competitive environment changes, the company's own capital chain is short, and finally they can only face bankruptcy.

For cross-border enterprises, how to better avoid market risks and find business growth points is very important, and it is also a problem that every enterprise has to face from beginning to end.

2023 is a very critical year. Sellers in the industry generally maintain a very positive vision for 2023, and are willing to try new platforms and explore new market opportunities.

However, for sellers, whether it is trademark registration or the selection of freight forwarding companies, or the operation of the company itself, they must be careful to avoid stepping on landmines. Sellers must constantly improve their risk prediction and management capabilities to avoid economic losses caused by stepping on landmines as much as possible.

Freight Forwarding

Trademark explosion